Garden Tour Holidays in Italy

Formal or wild, pocket-sized or manicured parkland, fountain-splashed or perched over the sea, a world of delights awaits in some of the world’s most celebrated gardens.

The Lakes have a bewitching combination of snowy alpine peaks and lush, Mediterranean foliage. Known as ‘the looking glass of Venus’, Lake Como is achingly romantic. Ringed by exquisite villas and exotic gardens, countless poets and writers have been moved by its beauty, including Stendhal who described it as ‘a sublime and enchanting spectacle’. The gardens of the Villa Carlotta are a riot of colour in springtime when azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons are in full bloom — but at every time of year the grottoes, dramatic terracing and landscape parks are spectacular.

Rising from the waters in the heart of Lake Maggiore are the enchantingBorromean Islands. Isola Bella is a masterpiece of the Italian Baroque with gardens laid out over 10 terraces with a profusion of rare and exotic plants, adorned with statuary, fountains, grottoes and dramatic perspectives.Isola Madre is like a floating sub-tropical garden where pure white peacocks strut and is also the site of the largest Kashmir cypress in Europe.

The mild and sunny Ligurian climate provides perfect growing conditions and this area is the heartland of some of Italy’s best gardens. Near the French border, Villa Hanbury is one of the country’s top botanical gardens where more than 3,000 varieties of tropical flora grace the sloping terrain around this seaside villa.Named after the 19th century English botanist, Sir Thomas Hanbury, the Villa Hanbury’s gardens are an exotic paradise.

Farther south, Tuscany’s Boboli Gardens are splendid examples of stylised Renaissance gardening with their cypress avenues and sparkling water features. And, outside Rome, the pleasure palace of the Villa d’Este at Tivoli is world-famous for its sequence of fantastic fountains. Often called the Giardino delle Meravigli (Garden of marvels), this UNESCO site is full of splashing delights from the Viale delle Cento Fontante (Avenue of 100 Fountains) to the Organ Fountain that plays very loud tunes and trumpet blasts.

Southern Italy’s warm climate and rich, fertile soil is ideal for olives and citrus fruits as well as tender exotics. La Mortella, on the green island Ischia, is a dazzling collection of terraced gardens of lush exotics shaded by umbrella pines, cypresses and myrtles — La Mortella meaning ‘the place of myrtles’. The gardens were laid out by the English composer William Walton and his wife, Susana, who believed there was a strong connection between music and gardening.

‘If music be the food of love, play on’ – and discover some of the world’s best gardens through our operators’ specialised tours, tailor-made, or self-catered options, throughout the garden of delights that is Italy.