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Garden Travel

Alhambra & Generalife Gardens, Spain

Alhambra Palaces & Generalife Gardens .. Highlights

Generalife ROSE Arches © Alice Joyce

An unforgettable profusion of roses and refreshing water features appear at every turn when you experience the beauty and brilliance of the Alhambra palaces and Generalife gardens on a Spring day.

Generalife Gardens  © Alice Joyce

The wonders of this world heritage site are the high point of a journey to Granada, the magnificent capital city of Andalusia, overlooking the Sierra Nevada mountains, some 40 miles inland from the Spanish coast. In May you can expect the days to be wonderfully warm, with clear azure skies.

Generalife The Patio de la Acequia © Alice Joyce

Patio de la Acequia – El Generalife: The presence of water – so integral to Islamic garden design – represents a life source, nourishing the body and the spirit. The Patio de la Acequia, as shown, is named for the acequias or channels for the irrigation system, which supplied water from outside the walls to the palaces and gardens.

Muqarnas are the unique tiered ornamentation mentioned in a previous feature exemplifies the exceptional craftsmanship which emerges in the architecture of the Alhambra.

Granada Alhambra Modernist Arena © Alice Joyce

A fascinating example of a modernist architectural addition to the ancient monument, the new Teatro or concert arena is a space composed of hard-edge forms and stark planes. The Generalife’s lush arrays of evergreen trees, clipped shrubs, imposing sculpted hedging and garden rooms overflowing with scented roses tend of soften the effect of the contemporary layout.

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Historic Gardens

Sacred Wood of Bomarzo .. Sojourn in Italy

BOMARZO: 16th century landscape populated by strangely compelling creatures, gods & goddesses carved in stone.

Bomarzo: Sleeping Beauty

Designed by the architect, Pirro Ligorio, the Sacred Wood of Bomazo is a marvelous Mannerist landscape in the province of Viterbo, in Italy’s Lazio region, north of Rome.

Bomarzo Dragon attacked by Dogs


Bomarzo: Neptune

The terrain of Bomarzo or Parco dei Mostri (Park of the Monsters) is a well-worn parkland today:  the price of admission yields a faded copy of a map. Yet, after having been abandoned for hundred of years, the 16th century estate of Prince Pier Francesco Orsini – called ‘Vicino’ – is open to the public to be experienced once more.

Imagine the astounding undertaking Orsini entered into when creating the setting, and you’ll be swept away by the Prince’s dramatic intent, unfolding along intricate, convoluted pathways: A theme that effectively rejected the dominant geometric formality common to gardens of the period.

At the entrance to the woodland, an invitation is etched: “You who go wandering about the world in search of sublime and awesome wonders, come here where horrendous faces, elephants, lions, bears, ogres and dragons are to be seen.”

Bomarzo ..  ‘Giants Do Battle’ – Hercules Copyright Alice Joyce

In Visions of Arcadia (Aurum, 1996), author, May Woods reflects on the playful character of one of Bomarzo’s stone beasts. The representation of a dragon with the wings of a butterfly. Woods suggests the depiction rests not in the creature’s diabolical nature, but rather in the role of protector, ensuring the purity of the fountain’s water.

Bomarzo Ogre

Huge in size and impact, the landscape’s much photographed Ogre, albeit engaged in an apparent scream, houses a table where you can enjoy a picnic.

Bomarzo

In the exoticism of the garden plan, Orsini presented an alluring challenge to his aristocratic guests – artists, poets, and intelligentsia of the day, to decode the symbolism, the iconography of mermaids, gods and monsters, populating the extravagantly theatrical setting.

Copyright © Alice Joyce

Mask of Madness Copyright Alice Joyce

 

 

An elephant about to kill a warrior;  a mythological Orc carrying a globe of the world, topped by a model of the Orsini castle:

Melancholic or humorous?

Horrific or strangely compelling?

At the culminating point in one’s journey through the Prince’s gardens, you come upon a building of subtle beauty, The Temple of Divine Love; built in memory of Orsini’s wife by renowned architect, Vignola.

In the weeks ahead, I will be reprising many of my favorite garden travel destinations! Stay tuned, my friends.

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Garden Travel

San Georgio Cloister Gardens

Visiting San Giorgio Maggiore .. Venice

San Georgio Looking Toward Venice  © Alice Joyce

affords an opportunity to take in fantastic vistas of Venice’s Doges Palace and the lagoon from the church tower. San Giorgio is also the name of the magnificent basilica’s island location.

San Georgio Maggiore from Tower  © Alice Joyce

 Looking away from Venice from the top of the campanile – the neo-classical bell tower, you’ll feast your eyes on the island of Giudecca, where we stopped to have a mid-day meal in an inviting restaurant facing the Giudecca Canal.

San Georgio AGTB © Alice Joyce

One of the most compelling sights I encountered in Venice: Atop the Campanile, I gazed down upon the serene cloisters of the San Giorgio Monastery founded by the Benedictines. The long history of the site includes a massive earthquake in 1223 that leveled the original buildings. Today, the church’s glistening facade – designed by Andrea Palladio in 1566 – is paid homage to by all who appreciate art and architecture.

San Georgio Cloister Gardens  © Alice Joyce

The magnificent Cloister of the Cypresses reveals a courtyard with a breathtaking layout of parterres arranged in a complex pattern: The Borges Labyrinth. The Georgio Cini Foundation, which restored the island and redeveloped the San Georgio complex, offers guided tours of this cultural treasure.

Travel Italy on Alice’s Garden Travel Buzz

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