Landscapes and Gardens of the Italian Lakes, Côte d'Azur, Provence and the Cévennes National Park

29 April - 21 May 2013

Tour Highlights

Led by Sabrina Hahn, horticulturalist, garden designer and expert gardening commentator on ABC 720 Perth, and artist and art historian David Henderson, includes the following highlights:

• • Journey from the superb Lake District of Northern Italy, through historic Genoa and along the awesome Ligurian coast, the sparkling Côte d'Azur and into Provence
• • Travel from late April, when the gardens of the Northern Italian Lakes such as Villa Carlotta offer an authentic sea of multicoloured azaleas, to early May in time to view spring's colourful wildflowers in the UNESCO listed Cévennes National Park
• • Delight in the classic gardens of Lake Como and Lake Maggiore such as Villa Carlotta, Villa Cicogna Mozoni, Isola Bella, Isola Madre and the enchanting Orta San Giulio, as well as the the finest gardens of the Ligurian Coast (La Cervara), Côte d'Azur and Provence, such as Villa Ephrussi, Clos du Peyronnet, Villa Noailles (Grasse), Jardin de Romégas and Château de Brantes
• • Visit many houses and private gardens by invitation, and contrast intimate, private gardens to the contemporary masterpieces of Eric Ossart and Arnaud Maurières, Russell Page's Domaine Saint-Jacques du Couloubrier and André Le Nôtre's terraced garden at Château de Gourdon
• • Contrast great châteaux and fine country houses like the Château d'Ansouis, urban seigniorial palaces in Genoa, great mansions like Villa Grecque Kérylos, the Renaissance Palazzo Grimaldi (Antibes) and the huge medieval Papal Palace, Avignon, with important modernist villas such as Le Corbusier's Cabanon at Roquebrune Cap Martin
• • Enjoy an evening of classical music under the shade of Frances' oldest magnolia tree at the Château de Brantes
• • Visit the Château de Roaix - a rare opportunity to view its gardens laid out by sculptor, garden designer and land artist Alan-David Idoux
• • Meet tree sculptor Marc Nucera, who will show us his atelier and experimental garden south of Avignon
• • Encounter a wide range of European art, from the great collections of Genoa, to museums devoted to modernists like Matisse, Picasso and Marc Chagall
• • Explore Roman Arles and the Pont du Gard
• • Drive along beautiful Mediterranean coastline and amble through the magnificent Cévennes National Park described in Robert-Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879)
• • Cruise through the precipitous Tarn Gorges - a limestone canyon carved by the Tarn River and dotted with castles many of which date back to the Middle-Ages
• • Stroll through lovely Mediterranean ports and hill-top towns
• • Savour haute cuisine at Mauro Colagreco's Restaurant Mirazur, perched above the Mediterranean at Menton; St Paul de Vence's La Colombe d'Or, watering hole of great artists; Restaurant La Petite Maison de Cucuron with Michelin-star chef Eric Sapet in the Luberon Ranges; and sample Ligurian cuisine at one of Genoa's best restaurants!
• • Visit Renoir's house, Cézanne's studio, and Matisse's and Jean Cocteau's beautiful chapels
• • Stay in carefully chosen hotels including the Hotel Napoléon, with gardens by Eric Ossart and Arnaud Maurières, the historic Art Nouveau Grand Hotel Tremezzo overlooking Lake Como and a lovely family hotel, Hotel des Gorges du Tarn in the mountainous village of Florac.

About the Tour

The district of the Northern Italian Lakes (Como, Maggiore, etc) and the Côte d'Azur are two of the world's most important examples of interactions between magnificent landscapes and the human creative spirit. Gardeners, architects and artists, writers and musicians have literally molded these environments and also celebrated their topography, colour and light, so that they have become famous places to be and to see, in which human creativity is at its best. Sixteenth, 17th and 18th century gardeners created masterpieces like Villa Carlotta and Isola Madre, richly planted, colourful essays reflected in the waters of Italy's most beautiful lakes. Before the 18th century, the Côte d'Azur was the rarely visited haunt of poor fishermen and pirates. Little of human value existed between populous and powerful Genoa and the old cities of Provence. In the 19th century wealthy gardeners began to create villa gardens along this coast, whose clement climate enabled them to grow a bewildering variety of plants from everywhere in the world. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries artists followed: Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Signac, Seurat, Picasso, Braque, Miró, Fernand Léger, Matisee, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau and a host of others, and the coast became inextricably associated with the development of modernist art.

This tour will explore the diverse ways in which gardeners, artists and architects have interacted with two of Europe's most beautiful regions, and how they have created what one author has called 'paradise'. We explore many of the two regions' most interesting gardens, buildings and museums, and also spend time in one of the Mediterranean's most powerful cities, Genoa, whose wealthy families built magnificent palaces and collected masterpieces to hang in them. We shall also explore Provence, where the Romans created wealthy cities, and the Papacy its vast French palace citadel, and where in the 19th and early 20th centuries writers and artists found a deeply traditional, distinctive peasant culture. The tour ends in the great Cévennes National Park, where we take gentle hikes through magnificent scenery, visit isolated villages, and even go on a cruise through the Tarn Gorges.

23 DAYS Tremezzo (2 nights) • Stresa (2 nights) • Genoa (3 nights) • Menton (4 nights) • Juan-les-Pins (3 nights) • Aix-en-Provence (2 nights) • Avignon (3 nights) • Florac (3 nights)