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 coach trip around Tuscany, garden visits can be tailored to your interests and your budget.
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
Those who want to go further afield could take a tour of early villas in the Mugello region just north of Florence, the birthplace of the Medici clan and ancient homeland of the Etruscans – one of the oldest and 
most revered of the pre-Roman tribes inhabiting the Italian penninsula.
On our first day – 1 May – visitors can tour La Foce, home of the writer Iris Origo and see for themselves the setting for her unparalleled diary of life in Italy during the second world war.
We will also visit the garden of Palazzo Piccolomini in Pienza two early twentieth century interpretations of the Humanist ideal plus Cetinale with its scala santa, a steep staircase rising to a vertiginous hermitage,built by an amorous cardinal to expiate his many sins.
To the west around the ancient walled town of Lucca are many grand baroque villas including Villa Torrigiani, a sixteenth century villa which mixes French style formal parterres, a rare Baroque flower garden and an English landscape park, or Marlia – owned by the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the King of Italy with features a sixteenth century villa and nymphaeum, a Baroque garden, a romantic park and an Islamic inspired Art Deco garden created in the early twentieth century.
Or, for those who want more modern pleasures there is the magical garden of Villa Massei, a contemporary garden in the grand Italian style created over the past two decades by two enterprising Americans.
On Wednesday 4th May at 6pm writer and tour leader Katie Campbell will be sharing her knowledge of the history and development of these gardens at the British Institute Library in Florence . We hope you can join us.
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. More information about Dr Katie Campbell is available on our gardens page
Where you will stay.
Villa de Rondini – guests on the tour can stay in the prestigious hotel Villa de Rondini – set in the hills overlooking Florence this hotel shares the extraordinary views enjoyed by the Anglo-Americans who developed their gardens in Fiesole.
For more information about the hotel and tour costs email penny.
Itinerary from 1st May – 6th may 2011
Paradise of Exiles – Anglo-American gardens of Florence
Saturday 30 April – arrival in Florence – met at airport and taken to magical hotel Villa Le Rondini whose gardens also enjoy magnificent views over Florence.
Monday 2nd May -Meet Hotel
- 9.30 to be driven to gardens in or around Fiesole –many of which were also worked on by Cecil Pinsent –
- 10.00: Villa Medici – home of Sybil Cutting – mother of Iris Origo
- 11.00: Le Balze – home of philosopher Charles Strong
- 12.30 Vincigliata – medieval castle of Sir John Temple Leader – where we will also explore the castle and enjoy a cheese and prosciutto tasting. T
- 13.30 time to take lunch at hotel ( if still needed!)
- 15.00– bus to Florence – Walking City Tour of Florence with Penny Howard
Tuesday 3rd May
- 9.30 La Pietra – last refuge of the aesthete – home of father Arthur and son Harold Acton
- 11.00 I Tatti -one of the first Anglo American gardens – home of Bernard and Mary Berenson
- 13.00 Lunch Casa del Prosciutto –north of Fiesole
- 14.30 Pratolino the exotic Mannerist ‘garden of marvels’, created by Grand Duke Francesco de Medici in the late sixteenth century.
- 17.30 Villa Capponi – a baroque jewel lived in by American art Historian Charles Perkins and Henry Clifford –curator of paintings at the Philadelphia museum
- 21.30 – Optional Italian Opera:- Tosca – performed at St Marks English Church, Via Maggio Florence
Wednesday 4th May
- 10.00 The Boboli gardens – developed by Niccolo Tribolo for the very wealthy Eleonora de Toledo, who bought the Pitti Palace from financially overstretched Luca Pitti when he ran out of money, and the Palazzo Vecchio became too small and constrictive for her and her growing family
- 12.00: The Bardini Gardens and the famous herb garden at Palazzo Corsini?
- Free time after lunch in Florence – visit to the Uffizi and/or Palazzo Vecchio
- 18.00: Dr Katie Campbell gives a talk at the British Institute on the Gardens of Florence -The talk takes place in the Palazzo Lanfredini Lungarno Guicciardini, 9 and lasts one hour -followed by reception with a glass of wine and opportunity to talk to other gardening enthusiasts living in Florence
Thursday 5th May
- 10.00 Villa Gamberaia – home of the reclusive Rumanian Princess Giovanna Ghyka and her inseparable companion , Miss Blood
- 13.00 lunch at hotel in Torre di Bellosguardo – home of Lady Paget
- 15.00 – Optional Tuscan cookery class with personal chel – Lisa Banchieri
Friday 6th May
We head towards Siena , Vicobello – important C16 Villa and garden layout by Baldassare Peruzzi – architect, painter and theatrical designer credited with the invention of moving scenery L’Apparita – a contemporary sculpture garden near Cetinale Castello di Celsa.
