PIEDMONT GARDENS

4 days tour of famous gardens of Marquess of Saluzzo, Manta Castle and  Masino Castle. Visiting of exhibition market “3 days garden festival” at the opening.

Arrival in the neighbourhood of Poirino, lunch in a typical restaurant. In the afternoon visit to the gardens of TENUTA SPINOLA-BANNA.

It is a modern garden developed all around a great rural setting, including castle and chappel owned by Marquis Gianluca Spinola and designed in the 90’s by landscape architect Paolo Pejrone, this latter well known and appreciated also as a writer of gardening and garden design art books. The garden is made up of seven wide open-air rooms and leans on four small lakes. The design by means of this garden has been outlining smartly and wisely all the morphological characteristics of this area, enhancing the richness of native plant life.

The tour goes on by bus reaching Saluzzo that will be the base during all the stay. The old capital of Marques of Saluzzo has been preferred not only because of its logistic qualities but first of all because it is the most beautiful town of Piemonte. Its historical town centre climbing up the hillside has preserved the original urban structure and the extraordinary medieval heritage of buildings and monuments. Hotel accomodation for the night, registration and dinner.

Day 2 – Royal castle of RACCONIGI and botanical garden of VILLA BRICHERASIO

Continental breakfast in the hotel and bus transfer to the RACCONIGI Royal CASTLE.

The palace has been included by UNESCO in the Human Heritage Sites list and it was the official residence of the Carignano line of the House of Savoy, and it has been one of the Residences of the Royal House of Savoy up to the second world war. The castle is the last example of the series of “Ville di delizie” (= nobility summer pleasure residences) built up in the baroque age around Torino. The castle setting has been distinguishing for its monumental architecture. At its interior can be admired lots of furniture belonging to different historical periods and styles and besides fabulous cabinet making works, frescos, ornaments, decorative gilding, sculptures, stuccos, chandeliers, floors and a huge collection of paintings. But the natural setting surrounding the palace is also relevant and we will dedicate plenty time to visit the area helped by a naturalistic guide.
The castle garden is a very evocative place, beautiful scenery on which the majestic architecture of the palace stands out. The palace witnesses the skill and experience of both the architects have carried out the project and the gardeners have laboured on it. It also tells us about the cultural taste and sensibility of the important person who demanded its realization. During the centuries the park of the castle of the princes of Carignano changed appearance many times.
The castle opens northwards to a wide geometrical park, designed late in the 17th century by Le Nôtre, famous French designer who also designed the gardens of   Versailles.
In the 18th century Giuseppina di Lorena, princess of Carignano, charged Giacomo Pregliasco with transforming part of the park into an English style garden, as the latest fashion required, by replacing the geometrical style of Le Nôtre too well arranged in flower beds and parterre with an emotionally rich and overwhelming nature trail apparently wild but wisely designed by the landscape-designer and gardener.
In the 19th century round about the 20s 30s, while the works at royal palace were carried out, also the contiguous green area was submitted to enlargement and radical change works.
In the new English style park, realized by the German garden designer Xavier Kurten, the romantic atmosphere, typical of the 19th century landscaping art, is suggested by the wide lawns and woodlands cut through by winding roads, the gentle contour lake with central isle, small bridges, few ruins, a cave, the picturesque buildings and ever changing views.
Between the 19th and the 20th century the park was intended for agricultural purposes and thus was neglected as a garden, but it was during the Second World War and in the post-war years when the lack of maintenance led this place to a progressive state of abandon. After a carefull restoration work, the park is now showing to visitors the same romantic mark Kurten had left on it in the 19th century. It’s an evocative place at any time of the year; it collects a great variety of plant species and preserved animals.
Lunchtime with free menu at the coffee-restaurant inside the castle. Return to hotel.
Guided tour of VILLA BRICHERASIO garden, together with the botanical expert Domenico Montevecchi, creator of this garden, who is kindly unveiling to us the secrets of his green artwork. It’s a private botanical garden for naturalization purposes, where scientific objects and the landscape aesthetical project have been developing side by side. The garden is divided into three phytoclimatic zones - Mediterranean, cold-temperate and continental – and is extending over a surface of 12.000 sq.m, each small portion of the garden being as different from one another as possible, such a miscellany creates a very strong impact, especially because some of the plants herewith living together naturally might grow a thousand of miles far one from another.

Among all the water plant species can be found in this garden, the most outstanding is the “Victoria Amazonica Cruziana” that is common to be grown indoor in almost all botanical centres.
Return to hotel, dinner and night stay.

Day 3: GARDENS OF BRAMAFAN AND MANTA CASTLE

Hotel breakfast and departure for Revello, where we might be thrown into the deep calm of the GARDENS OF BRAMAFAN designed by the owner, the landscape architect Paolo Pejrone.
The gardens, which are standing high as they clamber up the hill of Revello, are named after the nearby bastion a part of the complex village fortification that is by now almost completely ruined.
The following owner’s quotation should help us to better understand this site: “the gardens of Bramafan are usually “closed” to visitors. It is a private experimental park that has been created most for plants rather than for an aesthetic aim. The steep and dug up paths crossing over the gardens require a careful step along the way. It is real that the garden has been realized on plant naturalization and gardening tests purposes... but the gardener is always proud to share his green artwork with greenlovers”.
Lunch menu is following local tradition and is served at a typical restaurant in Saluzzo.

Guided tour of MANTA CASTLE, a property of FAI - National Trust for Italy. Best known example of very high artistic value on the territory, set in panoramic position overlooking the hills of the province of Cuneo and surrounded by a beautiful park.
The castle was first built in the XII century as a fortification and later on became a property of Marquiss of Saluzzo and precisely of Count Valerano, who around the year 1420 ordered the realization of the renowned wonderful fresco paintings to be carried out. The profane subject of the frescos on the baronial salon walls is much interesting as it represents a rare depiction of The Fountain of Youth, a legendary spring that reputedly restored the youth of anyone who bathed in its waters, thus realizing the ancient dream of human eternal youth. These fresco paintings, showing unexpected realism of the characters’ posture, are important documents of the international gothic painting art.
Return to hotel, dinner and night stay.

Day 4 – MASINO CASTLE AND THE EXHIBITION MARKET “3 DAYS GARDEN FESTIVAL”

Hotel breakfast.
Visit of MASINO CASTLE that, for ten centuries, had been the Residence of Valperga Counts. A monumental romantic park dominating the lowlands of Canavese surrounds the castle.
Full Daytime at one’s own disposal until departure to enjoy visiting the market exhibition; individual visit of the castle is also available on request.
At the interiors, the wide halls decorated with frescos and provided between the 1600s-1700s with rich furnishings, the Madama Reale apartments, the bedrooms for ambassadors and the warm and quiet secluded salons are still witnessing the events in the life of a family that played a leading role in the Piedmont history and the Italian history as well. The park also as the same castle underwent multiple changes over the centuries. The gardens surrounding the south-east and west sides of castle were designed in the XVIII century according to a classical geometric pattern that was a combination of the Italian Gardens style of the Renaissance and the decorative embellishments of the French Gardens. The current set-up of the park derives from a later on arrangement carried out in the first half of the XIX century on the basis of the English style garden layout. It is in such a location where the 17th edition of the “3 days garden festival” takes place, the first and the most important national appointment on the flower-breeding issue for gardens and terraces produced by FAI - Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano (National Trust for Italy), under the expert guide of landscape architect Paolo Pejrone, founding father and chairman of Garden Academy of Piedmont.
The show of great popular interest represents a “flowering bridge” able to link the visitor to the Masino castle tradition as a leading site in the trade market exhibitions through the colours and smells of the park evocative frame. More than 110 exhibitors, all duly selected flower and plant breeders from Italy and abroad, are present to reveal their collections and novelty items from the trees and garden woodplants to the rarest rose and gentle poppy, from fuchsia to violets, from fern to caper flowers, from magnolia to wild rosemary. In order to allow free individual arrangement of this last day according to one’s own desire, the castle entrance (fee included in the ticket) and the lunch time are unscheduled.

 Tour Itinerary might be subject to some time-schedule changes in the order but will not change in contents, exception made for circumstances beyond one’s control.

 Sport shoes or other comfort footwear are recommended as some of the sites we are going to visit can be reached only by foot and/or sometimes walking a short-medium tract uphill might also be required. We also suggest you to include a rain jacket and some rainwear in case of bad weather.