Italy 95 - this must be the most romantic garden in the world - the Garden of Ninfa

---

After our visit to the mad mad world that is Bomarzo gardens we are returning to a bit of normality in terms of gardening. Our visit today was going to be to something a little more ordinary, a little more domesticated and definately a lot more romantic .

Thanks to Monty Don a British gardener who fronts our programme Gardeners World we are off today to see the Gardens of Ninfa. He described them in his programme Italian Gardens some years ago as one of the most romantic gardens in the world. We had walked every step round them with him and re-run the programme times many until we felt we knew the garden intimately. They did look like something special . Being British we have the climate for good gardens and we do like our gardens. So we had to see them.

We woke early, set off early and arrived at Latina the location of the gardens quite early at 8.30 . Not early for us as we are early risers. Perhaps that is an age thing. Life is too precious to spend it in bed asleep.

Doors open at 9. As we went to park up a woman legged it determinedly up the field towards us. She was pointing frantically to further away. I got the gist after a lot of gesticulating that perhaps we were parked were the cars parked and she wanted us on the camper part. Seemed a bit over the top at the time as the car park was huge. Suzy was the the only one in it . After much toing and froing she seemed happy with our choice of parking spot . Surely they didn’t need all that parking space on a Sunday in April . What fools we were!



Next step find the ticket office and buy tickets . We joined one other couple at the desk . Time 8.40. By 8.50 a bus load had turned up and the queue behind us had grown somewhat . The bus tour guide strolled up and barged in front of us with his money in his hand. By now the the cars were starting to pile in and reality dawned . This was going to be a busy morning. And all Italy were out to see the gardens.

At 9 the desk opened. The tour guide placed his money on the table and his group were ushered past us. We paid our money and were directed to the entrance where we queued again waiting for the bus trip to be taken round the garden.

Oh Bloody hell it is a guided tour. We hate guided tours. No choice now though it was a take it or leave it situation. We had come this far so there was no turning back.

We had to wait for 30 other people to turn up. By 9.10 there were about 70 behind us all excitedly chatting amongst themselves . Finally the gate opened and we were let in . Dominique took us round. She assumed the group were all Italian speakers and never bothered asking what languages we all had . She started off in Italian and never stopped to draw breath for the entire tour which took about an hour and a half . I knew I should have gone to the toilet before coming in.

She stopped at the first building and explained what it was and who built the garden and a potted history. Now I have guessed all of that as the speech was was entirely in Italian and without a guide book or multilingual signing we had no clues as to what the building actually was. Luckily we had read up before we came so had a bit of an idea of what the Giardini di Ninfa were all about. Located in the Lazio region of Italy, about 40 miles south-east of Rome it is known mostly to garden enthusiasts It has a unique setting which is said to be a fairly well kept secret . Not sure about that . If this a well kept secret ..................... how do you fill at least two football sized pitches with cars. Then this is no secret.

Ninfa was a substantial town going back to the times of the Romans. However, during the Middle Ages the town was squabbled over, sacked, beset by malaria and eventually it was abandoned to the elements. A neglected part of the estate it was unloved and left to its own devices. It belonged to the estate of the aristocratic Caetani family, Ninfa was left to slumber until the twentieth century when descendents transformed the town's ruins into a botanical garden. The last owner, Lelia Caetani, left the garden to a foundation who now run the site. And what a joy and delight it was despite the tour we were forced to join to see it.

Now the plants wind and climb over the ruined towers and walls, rejoicing in the lush damp conditions. The setting is indescribably atmospheric, with roses scrambling for footholds in ruined archways, and the frescoed church wall still standing open to the weather. Roses, banana trees, maples and resident ducks thrive in the microclimate of Ninfa. The dampness of the location, under the hills facing the coastal plain and it all leads to an unusual mixture of species. Some of which grow naturally in Britain whilst others like the Amaryllis are just pot plants we grow in the winter and Easter Lilies cultivated in greenhouses.



We felt that she stopped too long at places as the trip behind caught us up a few times. We felt rushed. We were shepherded along from behind by two minders who kept us off the grass. They felt like sheep dogs shepherding us the sheep around the garden. I know the garden is precious but this felt like overkill with no opportunities to just amble about, admire the planting and take time to savour the flowers and smell and sniff them. .

What can I say about the garden? Well if you hate tours don’t bother coming . It did spoil it a little for us . If there is an English guided tour you might enjoy it better. If you love a guided tour you will be perfectly happy here but if you hate formality of a trip then this is not the garden for you. If you like to get up close and personal with the flowers and drift off the beaten track then forget this garden. The tour makes it highly organised and formal. We Brits like to sniff and smell flowers as well as look at them. And we like to take time to admire the familiar and discuss the unfamiliar . We like to take ideas back for our own small plots.



However if you like romantic gardens then this is the one for you. Here are romantic ruins by the bucket load. Everywhere are the ruined walls of buildings where nature has taken over and been allowed to run riot. When I say run riot if you look carefully it is neatly manicured. The gardeners are clever and make everything look natural . There are weeds but just enough of them , weeds poking out of just the right place but not allowed to take over. There are plants that have gone to seed but it is clear the hand of man has been at work and nature is not quite left to its own devices . One can imagine the gardener pulling out what is not necessary and leaving in just enough to make the scene look picture perfect .

. One such perfect place was a high wall which was completely covered by a most beautiful peach coloured climbing rose which gave off a heavenly scent . A red single rose scrambled over another wall. . This is a Spring garden with cherry trees draped in pink and white blossom, lilac wisteria is hanging from buildings , over Monet styled bridges and arches. Handkerchief trees were festooned with pink and white bracts. Around the water which ran through the garden were white iris tinged with iridescent blue, bearded iris of many hue and magnolia in full bloom.

It is a pretty garden there is no doubt about that and there are many photo opportunities but these were spoilt for us by forever moving on and not being able to do it our own pace. Spoiled by the constant babble from the crowd we had to join. We wanted to jealously guard the garden and claim it for our own. We wanted to throw out the visitors and be the only ones enjoying the beauty. Spoiled perhaps even by the fact that too much time was spent on describing all things botanical, as the crowds took close up and personal photographs of the individual flower heads and blooms. Spoilt by only understanding the odd botanical name. Oh to have wandered on our own and read about the plants ourselves . We did manage to escape close to the end of the tour and found ourselves in a bamboo grove . The stems thicker than I have seen before all rising to a height of over 30 feet. Spectacular in their simplicity after the blousy nature of the garden.

Is it the prettiest garden we have ever seen ? Probably yes at this time of year. There is a wow factor here. There is a quiet beauty and it is a plantsmans dream. There were signs of planting that would come into their own for later in the year , Amaryllis in beds which would be stunning in a month or so. The Roses would continue to bloom into summer and would be joined by clematis, honeysuckle foxgloves and ladies bonnets . Perhaps the water would be filled with water lilies and native water plants .

In Autumn the colour of the leaves of the trees would be stunning. Yes it is pretty and you could visit three times a season and see something different . Did we see it at its best ? No that can only be done with a tv crew with you and the garden to yourself . Would we have missed it? No even with all the hustle and bustle it was still worth the entrance fee and we could say we had seen the most romantic garden in Italy .

When we escaped the madding crowd the queues to get in were enormous like a huge snake coiling around the car park. The car park was full , the camper stop was full. I never believed Italians liked their gardens that much. I just thought that was us British .

Having escaped we spent the night in a boatyard near to Anzio. We seem this holiday to be staying at rather odd places. We have gone off piste and don’t hunt out the campsites but are trying sostas and camperstops . This one was run by a local entrepreneur who had a yard where he repaired and housed the local boats and offered a sosta for overnighting campers and a winter hideaway for Italian motorhomes. We were the only ones there .

We were greeted by the worker who turned out to be Bangladeshi and spoke quite good English. He repaired the boats and looked after the yard for the owner for which he was allowed to live rent free. His house was in fact a shed on site . When I say shed I mean shed. 12 x 10 with no windows apart from wooden ones which opened to the front , no toilets no running water . He left his boots outside overnight and he had a satellite dish and TV. I guess he was grateful for his bed for the night but somehow the whole thing felt like exploitation. He locked the gate overnight and promised he would open up at 8 the next day which he did to be fair . He showed us the drainage points and where we could get water and electricity and we hunkered down for the night . He charged us 15 euros (our trusty book said 10) so was the book out of date or did he take 5 euros for himself?. Who knows? He seemed to be happy with his lot and smiled often but I felt awful for him and would quite happily have kicked the backside of the owner for treatment that you would not meter out to a dog.

Our book reading has moved on – from a drug fuelled mystery story I am now on Wolf Hall a bit of history written by the Booker prize winner Hilary Mantell. Some say a hard read but I am going to give it a go. And to watch on TV – 19 episodes of The Vikings, blood and guts all done whilst raping and pillaging Northumberland and Wessex. Now that's a ripping yarn.

---