The Jardins de l'Europe occupy the point where the Thiou flows out of Lake Annecy into the canal, a triangular park laid out in the 1860s by the engineer François Lavalette. A botanical society planted it as a small arboretum with conifers, ginkgos, magnolias and tulip trees from around the world — many of the originals are still standing and now towering.
Cross the famous Pont des Amours — an iron footbridge of 1907 — at the southern tip of the park to reach the Pâquier lawn and the long lakefront promenade. The Jardins are open and free at all hours.