The garden tour is officially over but I have a day on my own in Venice so I will show you what I find about this city. A group of us decided to go together and hire a guide to take us around. There were 5 of us and Cristina Taddeo was a superb guide….

This is the last day of the garden tour and there are no gardens in this post but there is interesting history. I will be on my own in Venice tomorrow but will send a blog showing what I find. We stopped in Verona for a guided tour of the old city. They were having…

The post on Trauttmansdorff Garden was too long so I will post the rest of the day’s activities on this new post. Some scenes on our way to the castle. There were a couple of castles along the way and apple orchards. The Tyrol Castle that we saw was a complex of several buildings inside…

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…

The largest lake in Italy is Lake Garda and we visited 2 wonderful gardens there today. HELLER GARDEN There are so many plants in the Heller Garden that there is no chance for a weed to get established. There are plants everywhere among the tall trees. It is a whimsical garden with a lot of…

We saw 2 gardens at Lake Como and another one not on the itinerary. The roads around Lake Como are so narrow that 2 cars can barely pass. When 2 buses meet it is a big problem. Our bus had to back up. VILLA DEL BALBIANELLA Here are some views on the way to see…

The first garden we saw today was in Lombardy, Italy then we crossed the border to Switzerland to visit another garden. VILLA CICOGNA MOZZONI Entry courtyard Note how fresh the colors are on the ceiling frescos because the sunlight can’t reach them. The frescos on the south wall are faded out by the sun. The…

This lake reminds me very much of Lake Tahoe. It is a resort area with expensive houses and beautiful views. It is at only 750′ elevation so there are many subtropical plantings here. Our hotel grounds ISOLA BELLA With over a half million visitors every year this island, in the middle of Lake Maggiore, is…

Piedmont is the state in Italy that is north of Liguria and Alba is a small city in Piedmont. We went to one beautiful garden and then had lunch in a castle. TRAVEL IN PIEDMONT There are many farms and vineyards in Piedmont among the rolling hills which make for a very picturesque landscape. This…

Turin is a city of 900,000 population located in northern Italy. Before Rome it was the capital of Italy. LA VENARIA La Venaria is the largest palace in Europe with 861,000 s.f. It was completed in 1675 and became an UNESCO Heritage Site in 1997. It was one of the residences of the Royal House…