Historic gardens of Sardinia

Historic gardens of Sardinia

A journey through scents, colours, art and history, from north to south of the island that enhances a cultural and landscape heritage, represented by seven ancient estates, architectural 'jewels' with their beautiful and lush gardens

The itinerary involves seven historical gardens of Sardinia, through which you can visit the whole island in a week or in several short breaks. It starts in the north-west, in Sassari's park of Monserrato, then moves to the north-east, to Caprera and the garden-island of Garibaldi. From here it moves on to the centre, in the Nuorese region with the English park of Villa Piercy of Bolotana. Then you visit the Oristano area, in San Leonardo di Siete Fuentes (Santu Lussurgiu), the Pernis-Vacca citrus garden, the Vega of Palazzo Boyl (Milis) and the Italian garden of Aymerich Park in Laconi. The grand finale is the 'green' route to the Patrizio Gennari botanical gardens in Cagliari.

Parco di Monserrato, Sassari

Six hectares of 'green' on the outskirts of Sassari, surrounded by ancient Catalan olive groves. The ground has been modelled 'with gradients' to create scenes and sudden views. The park is bordered on one side by the church of Madonna di Monserrato and on the opposite side by the neo-Gothic 'hunting tower', which originally belonged to the Navarro family of merchants from Valencia, who sold it in the mid-seventeenth century to the father of the first mayor of Sassari, Giacomo Deliperi. The present design, with a neoclassical villa, the hydraulic system of the 'tempietto delle acque' and the Ninfeo were created by Giovanni Antonio Sanna, an entrepreneur, deputy of the kingdom of Sardinia (later the kingdom of Italy) and collector of art and archaeology, for whom the city archaeological museum is named.

Parco di Monserrato

Sassari's "green lung", a huge garden bursting with colour right in the capital of northern Sardinia, with Spanish, Piedmontese and...

Isola-giardino, Caprera

Giuseppe Garibaldi's highly active life found a new passion in Caprera , for plants and crops. The "hero of the two worlds" chose the island of the Maddalena archipelago for its naturalistic beauty and found time to make some of its parts cultivable - studying agronomy and botany - and to create a garden in a spectacular setting, which together with his house now forms the Compendio garibaldino, the most visited museum in Sardinia. In the square you can admire the pine that Garibaldi planted at the birth of his daughter Clelia (1867), today of monumental dimensions.

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Musei garibaldini di Caprera

In the far northeastern part of Sardinia stands the last home of the Hero of Two Worlds, his Garden of Eden in the splendid setting of sea, granite...

Parco inglese di Benjamin Piercy, Bolotana

Made by the Welsh engineer Benjamin Piercy according to the model of the English gardens and with the addition of native trees with firs, calychaters and cedars, the park was part of a large estate that extended over three thousand hectares between the Campeda plateau and the Marghine, also including the church and the village of Santa Maria de Sauccu. It stretched all the way to the border with Badde Salighes (valley of the willows). Through a tree-lined avenue you will enter the park that surrounds the Piercy villa, built on two floors in English colonial style: here you will admire lush integrated 'local' plants, in a clever play of open spaces, avenues and dense woods, with majestic exotic plants coming from all over the world.

Villa Piercy

In Bolotana, in the centre of Sardinia, a garden of autochthonous plants, exotic varieties and unusual crossbred trees provide the setting for a...

Parco di san Leonardo di Siete Fuentes, Santu Lussurgiu

Immersed in the Montiferru is the park (covering 5 hectares) and the medieval village of San Leonardo de Siete Fuentes, surrounded by centuries-old oak and chestnut woods, in an enchanting strip of the territory of Santu Lussurgiu. The name reveals its main aspects: an abundance of springs, salubrity, the twelfth century church of San Leonardo and the atmosphere of the surrounding muristenes, accommodation for novenants and pilgrims. The restored houses of the medieval village, built around the rural church and the old hospital - home of the hospice of San Giovanni di Gerusalemme - welcome visitors looking for relaxation all year round.

San Leonardo di Siete Fuentes

In the west-central part of Sardinia, in the Province of Oristano, is a lovely place set in a woods of oak and elm trees, near famous springs

Il giardino di agrumi Pernis-Vacca e la Vega di palazzo Boyl, Milis

The historic garden of Milis consists of two sites that lie next to each other at the entrance to the town, opposite the Romanesque church of San Paolo: the Pernis-Vacca plant and the Villaflor woods, the garden that hosted the first citrus plantation (12th century). The stables and residential Villa Pernis - Vacca dates back to the early twentieth century: it has a L-shaped layout, with a 120-meter long side, in the late nineteenth-century academic eclectic style, and contains Art Nouveau-style floral decorations and frescoes. The entire building and an elegant gate delimit a vast area at the southwestern end of Milis, part of the citrus gardens of Vega di Milis.

Palazzo Boyl

History, nature and culture come together in a XVII century palazzo in Oristano, in east-central Sardinia, with traces of the stays of kings,...

Parco Aymerich, Laconi

It consists of two areas: the park, which extends over 22 hectares, and the garden; both parts belonging to the Marquis of Aymerich, who were for a long time very influential in Laconi. Beauty, fertility and a wealth of spring waters are the characteristics of this paradise, which contains the ruins of a medieval castle and the ancient noble residence. The park is a destination for nature lovers and pilgrims who go to the charming village of Sarcidano to visit the birthplace of Sant'Ignazio. The hill of the park overlooks a particularly steep valley, where several water sources come together and form waterfalls. A dense network of paths and tree-lined avenues leads to the largest waterfall and the nearby caves. Don Ignazio Aymerich was inspired by the great gardens of the time: he personally took care of the paths and used the slopes to improve the scenographic effects and the twisting of canals and streams between leafy oaks, mulberry trees, fragrant cherry trees and cedars of Atlas and Lebanon.

Parco Aymerich

Sardinia’s largest urban park is on the border between the provinces of Oristano and Nuoro, a botanical paradise of rare plants and a wonderful...

Orto botanico, Cagliari

A 'green heart' of five hectares in the centre of Cagliari, between Villa di Tigellio and the Roman Amphitheatre. The garden is an open-air museum, an example of cultural and historical-archaeological heritage and, at the same time, a naturalistic and scientific asset. It was founded in 1866 by Patrizio Gennari, who distinguished himself for having given the garden a functional structure in the form of an arboretum for the acclimatization of tropical species. Today, managed by the University of Cagliari, it is also characterised by many Mediterranean flora. In addition to the numerous tree collections, it also houses archaeological remains from various periods: the 'a noria' well, the 'vasca trifoglio', the Gennari cave, the Roman quarry and three bottle-shaped Roman cisterns. Inside the vegetable garden there are also the Germoplasm bank of Sardinia, the biodiversity conservation centre and the Karalitan botanical museum.

Botanical garden - Cagliari

At the centre of Sardinia’s capital city, just outside of the Castle’s walls, is a large garden containing an enormous variety of plants from all...

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Historic gardens of Sardinia