Since 2013, during the 3rd weekend of the month of May, it takes place in Bologna a special event called “Di Verde in Verde“: for 3 days private and public gardens are opened for beeing discovered and visited by everyone. This year the event took place the from the 20th till the 22nd of May and I got the chance to be part of this “show”; unfortunately I was able to attend it only one day, but it would be worth a 3 days of “green full-immersion” for visiting all the places 😉
Bologna is a city that hides a lot of green treasures: behind usually closed doorways there is a parallel world full of plants and flowers, magical places where the time seems stopped, with a peaceful atmosphere that is incredibly relaxing.
I visited some gardens of the city center, mostly around via Santo Stefano and Strada Maggiore, areas in which there are many of them, also inside buildings of secondary streets… Here I am, in a dreamy mood, exploring Palazzo Rosselli del Turco’s garden (via Santo Stefano 63).
In this garden, passing under an arcade made of a jasmin’s plant, there was a secret place, a kind of room whose walls and ceiling were made of plants and then, here there was a secret door at the end of it. Wouuuuuuuu! Impossible not to take a picture of it, it had really something magical… I hope this this pic give you the idea 🙂
Another place I really loved was the Orti di Orfeo ( via della Braina 7): in this area of the city, that doesn’t really seem green at all, there you discover that behind a doorway there’s a real parallel world!
This vegetable garden was part of an ancient convent and it was open to the public since 2003, thanks to a nursery man who lived there. The garden survived to an attempt by the property of being transformed in a parking lot, hten it was closed and nowadays it’s opne only for special occasions ( to try a dinner under the stars that the Osteria Scaccomatto organizes during summer times). In its particular microclimate you can also find out some vineyards!
Even the building’s interiors where special, I really loved the vintage kind of atmosphere you could feel in this “world apart” 😉
Another garden dazzled me was the one in an intern of Piazza Aldrovanti (at number 19) with an painted architectural trompe-l’oile! Really stunning 🙂
I really liked also the gardens inside Palazzo Sassoli (vicolo Bolognetti,18), Palazzo Hercolani (via Bersaglieri 2), and the ones of Fondazione Zucchelli (via Malgrado 3).
Apart from the gardens’ tour they also organized other activities like concerts, exhibitions, conferences and you could also listen to lectures of literary readings regarding the gardens’ world; a lot of activities and events regarding this green and flowery world that actually has always inspired artists of any kind.
I think that the people who care (or just love) plants and gardens, as this Audrey Hepburn’s quotes say, is a person full of faith, a feeling that I think is really precious 🙂
The next edition of Di Verde in Verde has been already fixed: 19-21 May 2017. I already marked it on my agenda… you also should! It’s it such an amazing show you can really miss 😉
If you wish you can have a look at my photo album, with other pics, even on Steller: