Villa Gamberaia
As part of a recent visit to Italy, I dropped in to the Villa Gamberaia specifically to see the gardens. The Villa sits near Settignano on a hill with views towards Florence. Originally built in the 1600s, the current villa and gardens were remodelled between 1896-1935. The gardens were mainly designed by Romanian Princess Catherine Jeanne Ghyka and her companion and were quickly seen as being the "classic" Tuscan garden using geometry, pools of water and separating areas to create a garden with a variety of effects, skilful use of levels and breadth and simplicity of composition. It is really the perfect garden whose style and design has been copied ever since in many a garden, especially throughout Britain.
I'm not much of a gardener myself but I certainly appreciate the different styles and areas of light and shade throughout the garden. It's quite small, not exactly Versailles, which adds to the cleverness of its design and I would recommend it to anyone visiting the area.
