The monumental villas of Lucca are like pearls that embellish the crown of the surrounding hills.
Small and winding, flanked by high dry stone walls, the roads go up the hills in the middle of olive groves.
Straight and long, the tree-lined avenues open up, as in a theatre scene, to the monumental villas harmoniously inserted in the surrounding agricultural landscape.
The architecture and gardens appear like a theatre scene. Fascinating in every season, spring and autumn, when the scents of the countryside and the colours of the blooms or the foliage blend with the shades in the air, are the most evocative moments to visit them.
The gardens are real wonders, designed to amaze and entertain aristocratic guests with collections of exotic plants and exuberant blooms, wild woods and geometric gardens, fountains and water games, allegorical statues and masks, large fish ponds, artificial caves, nymphaeums, open-air theatres made of plants and every kind of beauty for a pleasant stay in the countryside.
A walk through the elegant rooms and parks of these ancient residences is a "must do" in the warm season:
The aristocratic Villa Torrigiani, introduced by an avenue of centuries-old cypress trees and a rare evidence of sixteenth-century furnishings and the refined art of Lucca's weavers.
The legendary Villa Mansi, which was the elegant home of the beautiful Lucida, a noble and elegant woman, today a restless ghost wandering through the garden;
The princely Villa Reale which hosted the court of Princess Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi in the nineteenth century.
A huge park with the famous water and greenery theatres, a large nymphaeum decorated with small river stones and dark glass, the camellias avenue accompanied by small gushes of the stream and the lakes towards the middle of the woods, the fish pond and hundreds of lemon trees, a gazebo for music and the panoramic hill ...
And further, beyond the boundary wall, the park of Villa Grabau with its rich and refined collection of local tree and shrub species from various parts of the world, and last but not least Villa Oliva, deriving from a Renaissance design, influenced by Florentine and mannerist art, with a variety of volumes and levels that characterize the architecture of the building and the surrounding space.