We have stayed at such a beautiful hotel these 2 nights that I have to show you before we start our tour of the Dolomites. The grounds of the hotel go right to the beach at Lake Garda.The name of the hotel is Dulac Et Du Parc Grand Resort
View from my room
Some of the scenery along the way:
We traveled through the Alps for 2 hours to Merano. We came close to Austria and found that more and more people were speaking German instead of Italian.
TRAUTTMANSDORFF GARDENS
This garden has lots of color because of its extensive use of annuals and perennials. The garden is divided up into 80 separate gardens not all of which I saw. This garden is huge; it has about 24 acres and about 33 full time gardeners.
They had a nice display of parasitic plants such as these Sarracenia plants.
The greenhouse has displays of tender plants such as orchids, Pachystachys lutea, Justicia carnea and Acalypha hispida.
The fern garden is planted along a rushing creek with 2 waterfalls. 
The newest fossil plant, discovered in Australia in 1994, was saved from the forest fires there by dumping water on the last 34 trees in existence. 
Coleus and Impatiens
Iceland Poppy
Oriental Poppy and Allium ‘Globemaster’
Stipa gigantea, Coreopsis and Yarrow
Petunia
Maltese Cross (Lychnis chalcedonica)
Wallflower (Erysimum allionii)
700 year old Olive tree
Love Garden
Cactus Garden
Rock Garden – each kind of rock native to Italy is displayed as well as its finished surface.
Fragrant garden: You go through and smell sample fragrances and then, out in front, go test yourself to see how many fragrances you can remember.
Different kinds of homes for bees are shown.
Pond garden
Peony Garden
Citrus garden
Vegetable Garden
Garden chimes garden
Italian garden
Pelargonium garden
Water garden
Bird garden
Steep slope garden
In the Garden Around the World 