A short walk outside the old town you will find a place that seem straight out of a child fairytale: Giardino Giusti.
An oasis far from the chaos and bustling of the city center where you can spend hours strolling around a beautifully curated garden. Created during XV century by Giusti family who came to Verona in 1406 and originally bought this piece of land to use it for their wool-dyeing business. For two centuries in fact the area was filled with cauldrons of dye in which they soaked wool.
Only later the factory buildings have been replaced by a stunning palace and the beautiful garden created following that time fashion: cypresses, fountains, statues, grottoes, hedges and a fancy maze.
Giardino Giusti became a popular spot for travelers of the “Grand Tour”. We are talking about not everyday travelers but personalities such as Goethe, Mozart, Ruskin, Emperor Joseph II, King Carlo Felice of Savoy and Tsar Alexander I of Russia.
The garden is still maintained as originally shaped with pots of citruses, mythological statues, fountains, lemons, grottoes, Roman remains, pavilions hidden in the trees, a stunning cypress alley that symmetrically divides the area.
The lower part has the shape of a typical “all’italiana” garden, divided in symmetrical sections of box hedges decorated with mythological statues of Diana, Venus, Apollo and other gods. Take the time to walk inside the labyrinth and go say hi to the turtles that live in the fountains.
After your eyes have been filled enough with all this beauty, start climbing the woods, and discover step after step the beautiful views while reaching the top. Spend some time to admire the landscape of Verona that will open in front of you and take some minutes to realize the real beauty of the lower garden from a higher perspective.
The visit of the garden will take you at least an hour, despite not being very large, but it will take longer especially during summer as temperatures are really hot inside its area.
Be sure to save 30 minutes to visit the palace and admire Giusti’s family original photos for a quick back-in-time journey.
Discover more of the garden in our video here below!
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