Monty Don's Italian Gardens

E1. Rome

Monty Don takes a grand tour around Italy's magnificent gardens, from the luxurious retreats of the moneyed north to the lavish hideaways of the romantic south. Monty begins his journey in Rome, power base of emperors and popes, to explore gardens that are among some of the most extravagant and flamboyant ever created.

★ 8.0

E2. Florence

Monty Don is on a grand tour around Italy, this time visiting gardens both in Florence and around the sun-scorched Tuscan countryside. Monty discovers how, like a piece of sculpture, renaissance gardens were created as works of art, and how a group of Edwardian ex-pats mistakenly reinforced the idea that formal Italian gardens were flowerless.

★ 7.0

E3. The South

Monty Don continues his grand garden tour of Italy. This time he is in Naples to visit some of the most sublime, romantic retreats in southern Italy. After all the formality of the green gardens around Rome and Florence, Monty seeks out idyllic horticultural gems set against the dramatic scenery of the Amalfi Coast to discover why, in the south, gardens are informal and, above all, filled with flowers.

E4. The Veneto, Lucca and The Lakes

Monty Don concludes his garden tour of Italy in the wealthy north where, in the Veneto and Lucca, extravagant pleasure gardens were created for flirtation and fun. Further north in the Lakes, Monty meets up with the garden society, the Grandi Giardini Italiani, to peer over the fence at luxurious creations of the rich and famous. The journey ends on Lake Maggiore to see the most theatrical horticultural gem of Italy.

★ 7.0