2012

Bellagio. Fly at c. 12.00pm from London Heathrow to Milan. Drive to Bellagio on Lake Como. First of three nights in Bellagio.

Bellagio. The Neo-Classical Villa Melzi at Bellagio was built in 1810 for Francesco Melzi d’Eril, vice-president of Napoleon’s Italian Republic. It overlooks the lake in an undulating English landscape park, richly planted and decorated with ornamental buildings. The Villa Serbelloni, probably built on the site of one of Pliny the Younger’s two villas on Lake Como, occupies the high ground above Bellagio. The woods offer magnificent views to all parts of the lake. The mediaeval remnants, 16th-century villa and later terraces are the setting for planting schemes in a backdrop described by Stendhal as ‘a sublime and enchanting spectacle’.

Lake Como. Villa Carlotta on the western shore of Lake Como, built as a summer residence for a Milanese aristocrat, combines dramatic terracing, parterre and grottoes with an extensive landscape park and arboretum. The house contains notable collections from the Napoleonic period. The Villa Balbianello occupies its own headland projecting into the middle of Lake Como, and can only be approached by boat. This glorious site is terraced to provide sites for lawns, trees, shrubs and a chorus of statuary. The villa stands among groves of oak and pine.

Renaissance villa gardens. At the Villa Cicogna Mozzoni at Bisuschio, north of Varese, the 16th-century house and garden are thoroughly intertwined; the courtyard of pools and parterres leads to a water staircase, grottoes and giochi d’acqua. Lunch at the villa. The Villa della Porta Bozzolo, tucked away in a mountain valley near Lake Maggiore, is a hidden treasure of a garden, shooting straight up a dramatic hillside from the village street of Casalzuigno. The beautiful 17th-century villa is unexpectedly set to one side to increase the visual drama. First of three nights in Pallanza.

The Borromean Islands. Isola Bella is one of the world’s great gardens (and correspondingly popular), a wedding cake of terraces and greenery floating improbably in Lake Maggiore. The sense of surrealism is enhanced by the symbolic statuary and the flock of white peacocks. Isola Madre is the ideal dessert to follow Isola Bella: a relaxed, informal landscape garden around a charmingly domestic villa. Visual entertainments include the marvellous plant collection, revitalised by Henry Cocker in the 1950s, the chapel garden, puppet theatre and ambulant aviary.

Pallanza. The Villa San Remigio at Pallanza is an Anglo-Italian evocation of a Renaissance garden made at the turn of the 20th century. Intensely overlaid with sentiment and stuffed with detail, it lingers in romantic decay. The Villa Táranto is an extravagant piece of 20th-century kitsch created by Henry Cocker for his patron, the enigmatic Neil MacEachern. The alarmingly gauche design is superbly planted and maintained with loving zeal by the present staff.

Some free time. Drive to Milan. The flight to Heathrow arrives at c. 5.00pm.