The first thing my hunt turned up was Topiary Today. In the website I found eye-popping pictures of secret enclaves and islands with terrific topiary.
Places to Visit
1 Pompei, Pliny and Topiary
House of the Vetti, Pompei, near Naples, Italy.
Reconstructed topiary where the roots of trees or box bushes were found. Described by Pliny the elder who died taking a boat trying to rescue people trapped under Vesuvius which rumbled for days and then massively erupted leaving people preserved for all time, turned to stone.
Pliny the elder wrote about events of his day. Pliny the younger, his nephew, another prolific writer, further wrote what is now an invaluable historical records of Roman times, and Pompei, and immortalised the family name.
The House of the Vetti combines two features I love, murals and topiary. Plus history.
2 Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore, Italy
The Italian name means beautiful island. Easy to remember. Isola is island, as in the English word isolated. Bella is beautiful, a girls' name, belle of the ball.
Isola Bella is a small island like a pyramid garden. It has terraced lawns with low knee-high neat mazes. (In French par terre, terre meaning ground or earth).
It has a border of single file topairy trees, like a picture frame. The single rows of 'lollipop trees' look, from above, like green balloons on sticks.
Contrasting with the green, white real life peacocks strut about amusing visitors. White statues stand immobile, beneath tall green cypress trees.
3 Villa d'Este, Tivoli, near Rome, Italy
Villa means house or elegant house. Village means collection of houses. It is one of the major excursions from Rome.
The man who created it was a would-be pope. (Remember The Vatican in Rome, perhaps another place on your wish list of excursions.)
I was taken there as a teenager and was bored and disappointed. Now, as an adult, have lived in several places with gardens, I appreciate how much time and money goes into laying out a garden and keeping it tidy with plants cut to shape, dead leaves and branches removed, whole plants and trees replaced when they die.
I think of creating topiary in a small garden in London, England. I could even create topiary, or bonsai, in a window box on a balcony in Singapore. How soon before it would grow out of shape?
4 Giardino Gusti, Verona, Italy
In case you didn't notice at first glance, Giardino is Italian for garden. I checked on gusti in google translate and got the result tastes. You get the idea, but that translation is not quite exact enough. I clicked on more and found: enjoy, relish, savour. The opposite of disgust.
Verona, famous for being the city of Romeo and Juliet.While in Rome, you should see Juliet's balcony in Verona. I have been there. You may have to pay for entry and a guided tour of the courtyard.
Not a lot or Juliet to see, but a must see. I think the balcony was bare when I saw it. You might get a photo of a statue, or a girl in costume, or dress the part and take a selfie. If you can't get access, your Romeo could kneel underneath, or at a distance.
Failing all else, photo shop a girl in period costume or yourself, plus period costume, onto the balcony. Use it as the cover shot for your honeymoon album or video.
Verona is definitely a must, a place to say you have visited, especially if you are keen on Shakespeare. In addition to Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare wrote Two Gentlemen of Verona. (I think the men who inspired the play were Italians at the English court, possibly crypto or hidden, former, converted Jews.) The Merchant of Venice was another play based on a city in northern Italy.
Websites
http://topiarytoday.com/italy/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Vettii
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker, language teacher. I have several posts on Italy, Perugia, topiary, butterflies, gardens, and learning Italian. Please share links to your favourite posts.
