Verona's Giardino Giusti

A walk through the Giardino Giusti is a must for any garden lover staying in Verona.

First planted in 1580 based on designs by Count Agostino Giusti, then expanded and perfected a century later, it is the epitome of an Italian Renaissance garden with its symmetrical layout, cypress avenue, hedge maze, and layered terraces.  

 

As with most Italian gardens of the period, this isn't a place to visit in search of flower borders.  The Giusti is all about structure and calm; it is a green, ordered escape from the chaos of life.

I recommend climbing the pathways up the hillside.  You'll be rewarded with enchanting views of the garden itself, 

 as well as sweeping vistas over the rooftops of Verona.  Each level of the terraces will reveal a bit more to you until you eventually reach the belvedere (beautiful view).

While the climb to the top of the garden isn't difficult, it is a good idea to bring water with you, as there is no food or drink for sale at Giardino Giusti, which is located about a 10-minute walk across the river from the historic center of the city.  

Better yet, bring a picnic to enjoy at the top or after you return to the graceful box parterres below. Like so many tourist cities, Verona can be overwhelming, and this is a perfect place to enjoy some peace and solitude without leaving the city limits.  Under the deep shade of the Cypresses, perhaps you will become inspired, just as Goethe once was, to write about the garden.

The Giusti family has maintained this garden since the sixteenth century.  I was especially interested to see how over the centuries they have perfected a careful balance between the formal and the wild.  As you climb higher and higher up the steep pathway above the garden, the plants grow bushier, less clipped.  Lavender and rosemary tumble into the path, releasing their heady scents as you brush against them.  

The cypress avenue

I've read some criticisms from fellow travelers about the less kempt sections of the garden, but I find the wild pathways to be a wonderful juxtaposition to the perfect symmetry of the parterres and labyrinths.  We all need a little wildness to remind us that we are in nature after all, and that the artifice of the formal garden is just that: artifice.  The plants, if left to have their way, would find their own, far less tame version of balance and beauty.  I believe we need both in our gardens, and the Giardino Giusti is a particularly stunning example of this principle.  

A fresco at the entrance to the garden . . . one of my favorite sayings.

My final post about Italian gardens will be coming soon.  I'll show you a very special place in Rome that, if you haven't been there before, I know you will add to your list of places to see.

Once again, I want to thank you for your recent comments and emails.  I've been hearing from folks all over the world about their love for gardens, for literature, and for travel.  I love your stories, and I so appreciate the time you take to share them with me.

Gardens of Florence

Earlier this summer I shared my visits to two gardens in Salerno, Italy.  I've been promising Florence, and at last I am delivering.  As we head into September and the first leaves have already begun to fall, I find myself longing for springtime in Italy.  For now, these photos will have to suffice.  

Have I told you yet that I fell head over heels in love with Florence?  I know this is nothing new.  Everyone loves Florence.  As Mr. Magpie and I window-shopped the jewel-box boutiques that line the crowded Ponte Vecchio, we had to pinch ourselves.  We were finally in Florence, the city I've wanted to visit since I was an 8-year-old girl poring through the pages of my parents' coffee table books of great museums of the world.  The Uffizi and Florence itself were at the top of my list in those days, and  they stayed at the top through all the years since then.  

I am happy to say that neither the museum nor the city disappointed.  We stayed just south of the Arno, one block from the Palazzo Pitti and the famed gardens of the Medici, the Giardini di Boboli.

The Boboli Gardens are the epitome of formal 16th-century Italian landscape design, yet they also incorporate several elements that were unique at the time, including sweeping views of the city and the countryside beyond in the neighboring hills. 

These views are largely the result of the steep topography of the site.  A broad gravel boulevard (Viottolone) lined by cypress trees climbs the hill.  

Smaller lanes along the Viottolone lead off to more private spots in the gardens, often decorated by remarkable sculptures, like this colossus bust of Zeus.  

With grottoes, sculptures, and fountains spanning the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as some from antiquity, the gardens are truly an open-air museum.

As you can see, it was a grey day when we were there, but warm, and the peonies were in full bloom.

In the view below, we are facing the Pitti Palace from the gardens.  

While they are open to the public today, when the Giardini di Boboli were originally laid out in the mid-16th century for Eleonora di Toledo, the wife of Cosimo I de Medici, they were intended as private family gardens.     

If you have time when visiting Florence, I recommend climbing a little higher up above the Boboli Gardens past the Forte Belvedere to the Giardino Bardini, with its beautiful rose gardens and yet even more sweeping vistas of Florence.

The roses at the Bardini are exquisite.  

It's difficult to limit this post to just one more garden, but I must or it will never be finished! Below I want to share with you a few shots I took on a different day when Mr. Magpie and I wandered over to the university district just north of the tourist center of Florence (it is a small city, so walking is very easy).

We went in search of the Orto Botanico, or as it is commonly called, the Giardino di Semplici (Garden of Simples), meaning medicines obtained from single plants.  Pharmacists traditionally make compounds, but a simple is one plant used to treat an ailment.

Founded in the mid-16th century, also by Cosimo I de'Medici, this is the third oldest botanical garden in Europe. 

Rosa 'Edgar Degas'

There are more than 9,000 specimens in the Orto Botanico, but what I love most are the many, many roses.

Curry plant

I also loved touring the old glass houses, filled as they are with surprising specimens.  It's not a large botanical garden, and it won't take more than a couple of hours to view, but I found it to be a peaceful respite from the madness of the tourist crush near the Duomo.  Plus, some of the plantings are truly inspiring displays of contrasting textures and colors.

Rosa 'Sally Holmes'

Rosa 'Clair Matin'

At the edge of the gardens, near the public restrooms, we found the storage area for the hundreds of pots used to display specimens.  Wish I could have brought a few of these beauties home with me.  Each one is between two and three feet tall.  

Rosa 'Pink Grootendorst'

This sweet little rose with petal edges that look like someone cut them with a pair of pinking shears was tucked away in a corner.  Happily, I researched it when we returned home and discovered that it's hardy to zone 4, so I think I need one for my Maine garden! 

One little side note, while I haven't included photos of them, when you're at the Orto Botanico, you will likely meet the resident cats who are taken care of and well housed there--one more thing that makes this place near and dear to my heart. 

I hope you've enjoyed this very mini and very whirlwind tour of three Florentine gardens.  I have two more very special Italian gardens to share from Verona and Rome--be looking for them soon.  In the meantime, my own roses and dahlias are blooming up a storm, so I'll have pictures of my little plot to share, too.  If you want a sneak preview, you can always check out my Instagram feed here (or click on the little icon on my sidebar). 

I have lots of surprises in the works in the coming months.  In the meantime, thank you so much to old and new readers alike!  Your comments, emails, and Facebook notes are a joy to read.  I haven't been blogging as regularly this year because I've been working so much on deadline with clients as well as with my own writing and photography projects, so I thank you all for hanging in there with me while the cupboard was a bit bare.  You are the best. 

Salerno Gardens

Here it is.  The first of a few posts about gardens I visited in Italy.  I know I was there in May and it is now nearly August, but the summer has raced away while I wasn't looking.  I also know that I said this would be the Summer of Awesome, and while there have been some beautiful moments, it has been far from awesome.  I hope you are thriving and creating and enjoying as many moments as you can to their fullest.  That is what I'm striving to do, and as I scan through these photos, I feel blessed to have visited such beautiful places.  

I took all the shots in this post in Salerno, a city on the southern tip of the Amalfi Coast.  It is just south of the tourist towns of Amalfi and Positano, and it has a distinctly local vibe.  It's not touristy in the least--in fact, most of the people I met there didn't speak English--but it is very real, and I loved it for its architecture, its orange trees lining the Lungomare Trieste (seaside walkway), and its laid-back energy.  Before I arrived in Italy, I had read about a very special garden in Salerno, high up in the hills over the city, so with map and cellphone in hand, I set off to find the hidden Giardino della Minerva.

The mid-12th century tower of the Duomo in Salerno

It's a bit of a treasure hunt to find the Garden of Minerva, so if you plan to visit, wear comfortable shoes.  Located in the old section of the city, it is tucked into a residential area of alleys, stairways, and courtyards.  There are signs for it once you reach the city's spectacular Duomo, which is well worth a visit.  It houses the tomb of St. Matthew in its incredible, inlaid-marble crypt.  I followed the signs to the garden, but got lost a few times anyway, which was a wonderful part of the adventure.

I loved so much of the graffiti I saw in Salerno.  This was a favorite message I discovered as I climbed to the garden.

At one point, I took the wrong alley or stairway or tunnel, and I ended up above the gardens.  There laid out before me was Salerno in all its terracotta-roofed glory, and beyond it the Mediterranean.  If one is going to lose one's way, there are much worse places to do so.

When I discovered the stairway in the photo above, I knew I was close.  Around the corner, I ran into a kind grandmother who gave me directions the rest of the way.  Two more corners, and there I was at the entrance to the oldest orto botanico (botanical garden) in Europe. 

The garden is a series of terraces tucked into the hillside, and all around it are apartments and other buildings, yet it feels quite secret.

During the middle ages, this was an herb garden for the medical school in Salerno.  Students studied therapeutic methods here, and the gardens are laid out in a quadrant representing the four humors of Hippocratic medicine (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood) which were thought to affect health and temperament.  If the humors were in balance, then so was the body, thus the gardens themselves reflected this philosophy.  

A stairway runs the length of the gardens, leading the visitor past terraces shaded by orange and lemon trees, and cooled by beautiful fountains.  In addition to the fountains, a miniature aqueduct system flows throughout all the gardens, providing water for the plants, as well as an incredible sense of peace everywhere one goes.

There are many medicinal plants here, like the calendula below, with placards explaining their uses in Italian. 

I'm not sure what impressed me more, the garden itself or its setting.   

A couple of hours later, I set off on another adventure, wandering back down through the stairways of Salerno to find the Villa Communale (municipal park).

This park is by no means a standard green space with a few flower beds.  The plantings are glorious, and it is extremely well kept.  I found a bench in a shady corner and settled in to write for a couple of hours.

High up on the top of the hill overlooking the park is the Castello di Arechi II, 8th century Prince of Benevento.  

As you might expect, I was completely in love with the flowers here, including the trellising of these gorgeous creamy-white roses at the bases of magnificent trees.  The effect was a long line of graceful ladies in glamorous ball gowns.

My favorite thing about the park, though, was how many children were playing there.  It's a magical place in a city that most tourists never visit, but that I loved.  If you do visit Salerno, be sure to head for the Centro Storico, which is the old part of the city, and it's where the best shops and restaurants can be found.  A long pedestrian street runs through its heart, making it easy to stroll and window shop.  And always look up.  There are gardens everywhere in this city: on rooftops and terraces and balconies--one treasure after another.

Next post I'll have gardens of Florence.  It's hard to narrow down to just a few photos, but I will try.  Mr. Magpie will be helping with that one, so who knows where we'll lead you?