Author: Italian Tours

24 Oct A SECRET GARDEN IN FLORENCE

Posted at 08:05h in Gardens by Italian Tours

Who doesn’t just love the idea of a secret garden?

Hidden away in Florence, just steps away from well-known tourist sights like the Pitti Palace, is Europe’s largest privately owned garden within an historic centre: the Torrigiani Garden.

The garden is known to have existed in the 1500s, when it first came to fame as a botanical garden, and successive generations of the family have extended and developed it over time.

In the early nineteenth century the owner transformed it into a ‘romantic’ English-style garden. Both the owner and his garden designer were Freemasons and the garden design incorporates a great deal of Masonic symbolism.

Few tourists find their way to this garden, which is open only by prior arrangement. Members of the Torrigiani Malaspina and Torrigiani di Santa Cristina families (often the Marquis himself) lead personalised and highly memorable tours through their magical ten hectare estate.

The garden offers a wealth of riches to the visitor: formal plantings, ancient rare trees, wide lawns and vistas, Roman walls, woodlands, sculptures and even a temple of Arcadia. The family has restored the antique glass houses and built modern greenhouses including a lovely lemon house.

One fascinating feature is the tower, built in 1824 as an astronomical observatory. It contains a library, a collection of astronomical instruments and an open terrace for star-gazing. Its three levels also allude to the Masonic initiation process, so you can imagine all sorts of alchemy happening in this romantic space.

These days the garden performs several functions: it continues to be an important botanical resource; as a gardening and crafts workshop centre; and the family provides fresh herbs to local restaurants.

As many visitors have observed, a visit to Torrigiani Garden is the closest you can get to experiencing the life of a wealthy old Florentine family.

A visit to the Torrigiani Garden is always one of the highlights for guests on our Great Gardens of Italy tour. Our next tour is running in April and May 2017 so if you would like to visit this and other fascinating gardens in Rome, Florence, Verona and Lake Como, contact Luca today.

01 Oct TRAVEL TIPS – PACKING FOR YOUR NEXT ITALIAN ADVENTURE

Posted at 12:35h in Travel Tips by Italian Tours

There’s an old piece of advice about packing for travel – pack your bag, open it up again and take half of it out. The less you have to carry around with you, the easier your travel will be. And the more room you’ll have for shopping, particularly if you’re addicted to Italian shoes!

We’re often asked by clients what clothing they should pack and what else they might need in their suitcase, so we’ve put together a short list of some things we recommend you bring on your next trip to Italy.

CLOTHING

We suggest packing layers. In spring and autumn, when we take most of our tours to Italy, this means including short and longer sleeved shirts, a cardigan or sweater and a light jacket in case it gets cool. In the north, you may even need some warmer layers and a lightweight down jacket.

Italian streets are often paved with cobblestones so don’t plan to walk around in flimsy shoes.

And don’t forget your swimmers and a pair of soft slippers for around the hotel room after a day on your feet!

Most people like to hand wash some of their clothes during the trip and a travelling clothes line and a couple of inflatable coat hangers make drying your clothes much easier.

DOCUMENTS

Make two copies of your documents, one to carry with you and one to leave at home in case you need to ‘phone a friend’. And don’t forget your Medicare card; if you do need to see a doctor in Italy, it’s useful to have this with you.

OTHER BITS AND PIECES

You will need to bring your own European two pin adaptors so you can use your Australian electrical devices. Universal plugs can be useful, particularly if you are stopping over somewhere on the way to Europe.

Bring your own prescription medications with you; your local prescriptions are not valid in Italy. It may be useful to get a doctor’s letter listing the medications you are using and any allergies you have. Over the counter medicines are readily available throughout Italy and Italian pharmacies are excellent. although you might need to take Luca with you to help translate!

We also recommend that you bring spare glasses, sunglasses, and don’t forget the appropriate chargers for your technology.

There are many small items that may come in useful: ziplock plastic bags, spare luggage locks, a small pair of scissors (not in your carry-on bag!), earplugs, a notebook and pen, headache tablets, safety pins, antiseptic hand gel and band aids to name a few.

Finally, don’t fret about packing something for every contingency. You can pick up anything you’re short of, like an umbrella if it rains or replacement toiletries, anywhere in Italy.

06 May THE STORY BEHIND APOLLO AND DAPHNE

Posted at 02:55h in Art by Italian Tours

First time visitors to the Galleria Borghese are often surprised and a little annoyed that they must leave all their belongings outside the gallery. Not even small handbags are allowed inside. But as soon as you enter the gallery the reason is obvious: it’s more like visiting a private home, with artworks not only on the walls but intimately located in the middle of rooms as well. No place for a carelessly swinging handbag here!

In a treasure house boasting works by Caravaggio, Titian, Raphael and Rubens, it’s asking for trouble to single out one masterpiece. But the collection boasts about half a dozen sculptures by the darling of the Baroque popes, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and it is justifiable to nominate Apollo and Daphne as the most spectacular of these.

This dynamic marble sculpture stands in the middle of the room and tells the story of the warrior god Apollo and his relentless love for the nymph Daphne. According to the myth Apollo, full of warrior-like chutzpah, came across the love god Eros who was using his bows and arrows to shoot darts of love into his targets. Apollo sneered at Eros, telling him that he should not be playing with warriors’ weapons. Incensed Eros prepared two arrows, one of lead to incite hatred and one of gold to incite unquenchable love. He shot the lead arrow into Daphne’s heart and the gold into Apollo’s heart.

Daphne had already spurned many potential lovers and had begged her father, the river god Peneus, to let her remain unmarried so Apollo’s prospects were never rosy. Nevertheless he pursued her and she, filled with loathing, fled. Intent on further mischief, Eros intervened again, helping Apollo to catch up to the desperate girl. Seeing that Apollo was about to catch her, Daphne called to her father, asking him to change her shape to save her. And with the cruelty that characterised so many of the gods, Peneus did just that, transforming her into a laurel bay tree. Realising he could never have her as his wife, Apollo vowed to tend the laurel tree, promising that her leaves would crown victors and that she would remain evergreen.

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Bernini’s statue captures the very moment of Daphne’s transformation. At the instant Apollo lays hands on her, her outstretched fingers grow leaves, her skin turns to bark and her feet are rooted to the ground. She looks wildly into space, doubtless appalled by what is happening to her, while Apollo realises he will never possess her.

It was originally placed so that the observer’s first view was from behind Apollo and so that the rest of the story could unfold as the observer walked around the statue. So take a few moments to walk slowly round this statue and let the story emerge.

Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul IV amassed the significant collection in the Gallery Borghese in the 17th Century and housed it in his newly built villa on the family estate. Today, the museum strictly controls numbers, with visitors being admitted at two-hourly intervals, so be sure to pre-book your tickets for a designated entry time on the gallery’s website. Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne is located on the ground floor of the museum, with his other masterpiece The Rape of Propserpina.

04 Oct CONFESSIONS OF A DEDICATED ITALIAN STUDENT

Posted at 18:00h in Italian Language by Italian Tours

I had been learning Italian for only three months when I went for a holiday to Italy. Standing on a pier overlooking the gorgeous Ligurian coast I took a deep breath and tried out my Italian on an older couple nearby. I ventured a simple question about walking to the Cinque Terre. They were utterly thrilled and spent the next fifteen minutes painstakingly describing how I could find the station and where to get off to begin the walk. They were determined that I would understand and deserved a medal for their patience. For me that experience, the ability to connect to people in a real way, was almost better than the walk itself.

You don’t have to speak fluent Italian to bring a smile to the face of a bartender or a shopkeeper. Even a couple of phrases will open the door to a very different experience.

Here are some friendly phrases to practise:

Buongiorno, come va? Good morning, how are you?
È buonissimo! To the waiter about the food – It’s really good
Un caffè per favore To order an espresso coffee at the bar
Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque Numbers are always useful
Grazie mille! Thank you very much

Italian is a relatively easy language for an English speaker to learn. It’s a Romance language, like French, based on Latin so many words are already familiar to English speakers. When in doubt I simply add an ‘o’ to the end of the words and see if it brings a smile to face of the person I’m talking to!

Fifteen years down the track, my Italian is competent. People routinely compliment me, but I’m pretty certain it’s not about my language skills and my accent because I know I’m not really that good at it; really they are just thrilled to have a foreign visitor engaging with them in their own language. It certainly makes any trip to Italy a richer and more wonderful experience.

So pick up a phrase book, try one of the many language-learning apps that are now available or enrol in a short Italian course before your next holiday. This advice comes with a serious warning though: once you start learning a little bit of Italian, you may not be able to stop!

For those that have caught the language bug and are already learning Italian, you should consider the Vacanze in Italiano Tour that takes you to Puglia. It’s an immersion language tour aimed at intermediate speakers to one of the most beautiful regions in Italy.

Take your Italian on holiday!

By Annie Kiddell

Annie is one of Luca’s oldest friends and has been a long-term contributor to Italian Tours. Her love of Italy and all things Italian, as well as frequent trips all over Italy have made her an invaluable writer, researcher and general sounding-board for us.
Here is Annie applying a very scientific methodology to the research task of finding the best sfogliatella in Naples.