Italy day Five: Villa Garzoni in Collodi

Collodi was the next day on our wonderful excursion through Italy. The author of Pinocchio used the town's name as his penname. The villa is not inside the garden, but adjacent to it. While we were there, they were once again in the renovating phase of some parts of it. There also used to be tall and thick foliage surrounding the walls, really cooling the main area down, but these have been removed.




This image was taken by Peter, one of the professors on the trip, and it is a picture of what the villa and garden used to be like.

This is what it looks like now. This image was also taken by Peter (I didn't get one as beautiful!) and shows a great view of most of the garden. These pools alternate shooting the water from the center, and ducks and swans swim in both. It was beautiful.

This is a close-up of the central element in the garden. The staircases are beautiful. Decorating the walls and some of the walks (usually on the stairs and the landings of each terrace) were different colored rocks. These are original from when it was constructed, and luckily they have been maintained well to survive so long.

This is a close-up of the topiaries that fill the main lower level of the garden. There were many different shapes throughout the space.

Some of the brilliant color that decorates the garden. It is made up of different colored glass, therefore was not a place for people to walk on. In the previous picture, this is seen in the background of the topiaries and greenery patterns. Another exact decoration is on the other side of the main walk.

I took this picture to go along with the following two images. The staircase in the center of the garden has four levels, from the bottom of the stairs to the top. This level is the second level, and has a grotto that is under the staircase leading up to the third level (go back a few pictures to get a better visual).

A view of the second level from the center of the staircase. I was amazed that palm trees grow in Italy so well.

Brett, deciding whether to go into the grotto or not. We had already been inside the grotto once, and many of us were gathered at the entrance of the garden sketching and writing in our journals, when another student, Karin, came up and said that she had gotten wet inside the grotto. She thought that when she stepped in a certain way that she caused water to squirt up from small holes in the floor, and she got wet. Our professor, Elizabeth, and another student went up to investigate the grotto some more. They discovered that there were two valves that when turned, squirted water from two different places in the grotto. We decided to play a trick on her husband, Peter, and we all went to the cave. It didn't work because he got suspicious, but we had fun trying anyway. It was refreshing to get wet ourselves too!

Further on at the top of the stairs was another terrace that led higher. These steps were old and in the center were fountains of water.

The fountains at the top of the entire garden. There was a pool also, but it was green and interesting.

Looking down the fountains. It was a great view!

At the very top was a path that led towards the villa. We couldn't go into the villa, but the path led us through some interesting greenery. This is bamboo. We learned that an ancient way of torture was to strap someone down to the ground. Once the person was tied to the ground, the torturors would then take their hands and feet and tie them over a piece of growing bamboo, which would grow through them as it grew. I don't think the Italians practiced that form of torture, so I felt safe! At the end of this path was another staircase, and at the top of that was a maze. I took a picture, but it didn't turn out enough to tell what it was, so I will not post it. Mom would have enjoyed it and stayed there the whole time.

This is a theater that they would use to put on plays. Each statue was placed at the end of greenery that acted like curtains, creating different wings on each side.

Another image by Peter. This is looking back at the villa after leaving the theater area.

A view looking down at much of the rest of the garden from the theater area.

Looking straight down the terrace after leaving the theater. Many of these small trees were orange trees, but they weren't good for eating. A student who used to live in California called them sour orange trees. Peter tried one, it was sour.

Many of these gardens are not used in exactly the same way as when they were first constructed. In this garden, we found that they had started building many small structures or just enclosed spaces that housed different animals, usually birds. This image is of a bird and butterfly house. It was so humid in there, but was still cooler than outside.

A close-up of a beautiful butterfly or moth, and some flowers. Ironically, when I was going through Peter's pictures, he has one of the exact same flowers and butterfly, with its wings further open. I decided mine was good enough to post.