Well, rather more than a little tour – and this is part one from a week’s holiday in Venice. I have edited, seriously edited, these images from just slightly more than 3000, to a few hundred. And horticulture is, I have to admit, quite limited in these watery parts. Some beautiful balconies, and one or two private gardens that can be glimpsed through ornate gateways. One park, a tree-lined island and in a new post a trip to Padua, and Europe’s oldest Botanical Garden, laid out in 1545. But mostly these are holiday snaps. Lots of architecture, a lot of art (The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Palazzo Cini, Ai Weiwei, Fiorucci and Memphis at Palazzo Franchetti, Bellini on Murano and the glass museum there, the inside of quite a few churches, more glass of course, on Isola San Giorgio Maggiore, trips out in to the lagoon to visit Murano and Burano, two tours up the Campanile (one grey day and one beneath clear blue skies and sunshine). Vaporetti up and down the Grand Canal. The works!
Normal Horticultural Service will resume shortly I am sure, but please indulge me for the next few days while I revisit and remember La Serenissima.
The Teddington Gardener 