Bagnaia: Villa Lante

This past Wednesday we took a bus to Bagnaia to visit the Villa Lante. We had a perfect day to tour gardens with temperatures reaching 70! Villa Lante is a pleasure garden that stretches up a slope and uses gravity to make water flow through various water features. You begin the tour at the most structured and formal garden that creates a maze of hedges.

There were many beautiful plants that were just beginning to bud and bloom.

This water feature is meant to be a table...the trough in the middle is used to float wine bottles and to keep them chilled.

The garden had a great number of fountains of enormous scale.

This handrail twists back onto itself and channels a cool stream of water that you could dip your hand into as you ascended deeper into the grounds.

The source of the water comes from a grotto that is the most natural and rugged feature. It is supposed to symbolize our primeval beginnings and the belief that all life is dependent on water.

The sunlight was filtered through centuries old deciduous trees and the water features added to the humidity making a very cool microclimate.

The garden was filled with little caricature carvings that helped to funnel the water.

The slope creates a sense of mystery by blocking views into the adjacent gardens.

My favorite part of the day was when I left the formal garden and roamed the 'wild side' of Villa Lante. Here in Castiglion there is not a lot of open green space. For a few minutes, I got to escape the built environment and linger in nature. I wish I had a blanket and a picnic lunch to make a perfect day complete. In the afternoon we travelled to another garden. Stay tuned for another blog post...I took too many photos and to do each garden justice I decided to split up the images.