If you were taking part in a TV quiz, what would you answer to the question: "What is the most beautiful garden in the world? " Perhaps "Versailles“? Wrong answer. On the top step of the podium he climbs Villa Taranto with its magnificent garden located on the promontory of Castagnola a Pallanza, in the province of Verbania. To decree it as the best botanical space in the world, was the online platform Theneeds through a survey submitted to web users. Villa Taranto has blown the first place to another wonder: the Palace of Versailles.
The history of Villa Taranto, the most beautiful garden in the world
Il most beautiful garden in the world it owes its origins to an unusual Scottish character, the captain Neil Boyd McEacharn. He had been in Italy the first time at the age of 8 and immediately fell in love with Beautiful country. In our country he found fertile ground for his greatest passion: the botany. The great vivacity and floral variety present here made theItaly the ideal place for his studies. So, once he grew up, he started looking for some land that would lend itself to the construction of a large one garden.
In 1930 he stumbled upon an ad on the Times, on which a certain Marquise of Sant'Elia sold her property on the banks of the Lake Maggiore. The landscape, made of hills and ponds, reminded him of his beloved Scotland. He didn't think twice about buying it, and immediately worked to transform the garden. He engaged in several excavation works, and found thousands of seeds from all over the world, so that his project could take shape. The result of his work? The creation of the most beautiful garden in the world, with over 7 km of avenues that cut through small oases where they live floral species from all latitudes. He named the villa to one of his ancestors, the Duke of Taranto, who had obtained this honor directly from Napoleon.
He left the villa when the war broke out in 1939 and then returned to it at the end of the conflict. Under pressure from local authorities, the captain was pushed to open his garden to the public, which he jealously guarded. Irony of fate, McEacharn died in 1964 on the veranda overlooking the garden of Villa Taranto. He died admiring the thing he loved most: his fiori.
The beauties of Villa Taranto
Il most beautiful garden in the world contains over 20000 species, all of which the old captain McEacharn classified them all in a volume of over 350 pages! Strolling through the long avenues of Villa Taranto, it is easy to get lost in colors and scents. The garden areas are manicured maniacally, and divided into thematic areas, in which they can be admired exotic and continental species. An excursion among the flowers of Villa Taranto is equal to a walk in a "botanical art gallery“, In which countless natural masterpieces can be found. For example, there are terraces with ponds enriched by floating water lilies Japanese style, very high webbed, azaleas, climbing orchids and much more.
Do not miss the dahlie labyrinth, flowers from Central America, which symbolize in the common imagination the beauty to be grasped. Indeed, you can not help but be fascinated by the forms and the infinite shades of color. The gardens of Villa Taranto they are open for well 245 days a year, during which they reach beyond 150.000 visitors. The numbers show that the captain McEacharn has perfectly succeeded in his aim: to realize the most beautiful garden in the world.
