Gardens by the Bay

Gardens by the Bay is what happens when a city-state decides its identity upgrade should be botanical: 101 hectares of reclaimed land turned into a garden of science-fiction set pieces, opened in 2012 and instantly the most photographed thing in the country. The Supertrees — eighteen steel-and-planting towers up to 50 metres tall — are vertical gardens, rain collectors and solar generators at once, and twice a night (7:45 and 8:45) they perform the Garden Rhapsody light-and-music show, which is free, unskippable, and best watched flat on your back on the lawn beneath them.

The ticketed heart is the two conservatories, and they justify the price. The Flower Dome is the largest glass greenhouse on Earth — a Mediterranean spring in the tropics, thousand-year-old olive trees included — but the Cloud Forest is the one people remember: a 35-metre planted mountain wrapped in the world's tallest indoor waterfall, circled by aerial walkways through genuine cloud (the misting schedule is posted; time your walk to it). Both are air-conditioned to alpine temperatures, which after a Singapore afternoon is its own attraction.

Book the two-conservatory ticket online (cheaper, and weekend slots cap), go late afternoon — conservatories at their calmest, then dinner at the hawker stalls at Satay by the Bay, then the 7:45 light show — and you've done the Gardens correctly in one arc. The OCBC Skyway between Supertrees and the Supertree Observatory are modest add-ons; take the Skyway at dusk if the budget stretches. The outdoor gardens are free and open to midnight.