Beyond the Yalla Dog

The Tuscan garden is both Italian landscape and English formality. Tuscan villas were often surrounded by farms and vineyards with beautiful gardens at the foot of the villa. Tuscans, with their artistic sense and attachments to their surroundings, create gardens that fit into their landscapes.

Details are below on the garden visits however if you want information about the hotel and tour costs email penny.

Custom designed garden visits with garden historian Dr Katie Campbell

Whether it is a single afternoon or a full five days, walking tours within the city, day trips to nearby hilltop villas or an extended trip around Tuscany, our garden visits can be tailored to your interests and your budget.

Our schedules offers a small group a private week long tour of various Tuscan gardens – many of which are not generally open to the public.

Private tour to gardens in and around Fiesole 

Cost for private travel in air-conditioned mini-van with private tour guide and 3 garden admissions €99 – some images below with links to blogs about our visits

 

Villa  Gamberia 

Villa Marlia – not far from Lucca

 11.45 Villa Torrigiano – the Garden of Flora

Previous activities

An earlier tour in May 2011 was for 8 days and included guided tours of public gardens such as Torre Bellosguardo, Boboli and Bardini gardens and tours of private villas such as La Pietra, garden of the late historian Harold Acton and I Tatti- home of the famous  connoisseur Bernard Berenson, Villa Medici the first purpose-built Humanist villa  plus the baroque villas  of Gamberaia and Capponi set in the hilltop towns with staggering views of the surrounding countryside and the city beyond.

Proramme for May 2011 below – Blogs can be found about each of these gardens if you search the Posts on the right side – posts / gardens or follow the links below

On our first day - 1 May – visitors toured La Foce, home of the writer Iris Origoto  see for themselves the setting for her unparalleled diary of life in Italy during the second world war.

We also  visited the garden of Palazzo Piccolomini in Pienza an early twentieth century interpretation of the Humanist ideal at the palace of Pope Puis Piccolomini

On Wednesday 4th May at 6pm writer and tour leader Dr Katie Campbell shared her knowledge of the history and development of these gardens at the British Institute Library in Florence .

Until the end of 2011 three copies of Katie’s book are still available at a reduced price at the English speaking BMBookshop in Borgo Ognissanti – after that contact Penny for a copy 

About your tutor

Dr Katie Campbell lectures on the postgraduate Garden History course at Bristol University, she has led many tours and writes for various publications.

Her most recent book, Paradise of Exiles: The Anglo American Gardens of Florence http://www.franceslincoln.co.uk/en-gb/C/0/Book/1355/Paradise_of_Exiles.html explores the eccentric community of English and American expatriates which gathered in Florence at the end of the nineteenth century, while her earlier Icons of Twentieth Century Landscape Design looks at the seminal designs of the past hundred years.

Dr Katie Campbell is also a journalist and fiction writer; her plays have been performed on stage and radio and she has published a novel, a collection of short stories and several books of poetry as well as Icons of Twentieth-Century Landscape Design (Frances Lincoln, 2006) and Policies and Pleasances: A Guide to the Gardens of Scotland (Barn Elms, 2007).

Where you can stay.

Villa le Rondini - guests on the tour can stay in the prestigious hotel Villa le Rondini – set in the hills overlooking Florence this hotel shares the extraordinary views enjoyed by the Anglo-Americans who developed their gardens in Fiesole. Alternatively Penny can arrange accommodation for you in the centre of Florence.

www.villalerondini.it

For more information about the hotel and tour costs email penny direct on penny.howard1@ntlworld.com