Giardino Bardini, Florence

Giardino Bardini is a historic garden belonging to Villa Bardini, spread across the hills of Florence’s Oltrarno. The garden covers about 4 hectares and offers broad views across the city. At its heart, the grand staircase rises toward a small belvedere building; this dramatic feature dates from the 17th century.

Look at the staircase and the belvedere above it: they form the garden’s most theatrical composition. The grounds bring together three areas shaped in different periods: an Anglo-Chinese garden beside the staircase and an agricultural park on its other side. Statues, fountains, roses, irises and hydrangeas fill the setting with cultivated detail.

Near the staircase, six mosaic-decorated fountains accompany a rustic grotto whose artificial terracotta plants mingle with living ones. The pergola of several wisteria varieties creates a particularly picturesque passage when it flowers in April. Higher up, near the Kaffeehaus, another grotto survives; lower down, vegetation forms an open-air theatre in a hollow of the land. After decades of neglect, the garden underwent a five-year restoration beginning in 2000 and opened to the public in 2007.