Not sure if this is the right forum for this or not, but here goes...

DH and I got back about a week ago now from our 10-day whirlwind tour of Italy, and WOW what a trip it was! Since we have never been there at all before, we hit the major tourist high points: Rome, Florence, Chianti (prime wine country in Tuscany), Venice and Sorrento/Amalfi Coast. I, of course, went picture-taking crazy, including about a billion of all the great gardens and windowboxes we saw. After much hemming and hawing, I managed to cut it down to the top 30 botanical photos of the trip.

So if you're interested, grab some of your favorite beverage (a morning cappuccino or afternoon vino, if you want to savor the local flavor ☺) and take a look! (I should apologize in advance, though--we still have people working on the house, so I may have to post in bits and pieces. I'll let you know when they're all up, though. The last one will be, literally, dessert...)

Here are the Pines of Rome, made famous in music by Respighi. These are actually the ones in the gardens of the Villa Borghese.

This is the outside of the Roman-era Pantheon. I was constantly amazed by the little plants, grabbing whatever footholds they can on these amazingly ancient structures.

Bouganvilleas everywhere! This one was amazing--not only huge, but it had also been planted with jasmine, so up close it was even more beautiful, but also had that heavenly jasmine fragrance.

Note to self: plant jasmine for next spring!

Okay, now on to Florence. Unfortunately, our two days in Florence were the only two days it rained, so nothing looks bright and sunny. However, this did not stop us from visiting the Pitti Palace (home to the Medicis and now several amazing museums) and the Boboli Gardens. They could have used a little upkeep, but were lovely nonetheless.

The gardens overall weren't much on flowers, but there was a rose and peony bed that was beautiful, even in the rain.

And of course, grape vines everywhere--even in the ornamental gardens. Apparently they're trained differently; unlike the cordons I'm used to seeing, the Italians tend to train them more as standards. They look kind of funny, but who's to argue with the Italians when it comes to grape vines?

After Florence we went to the Chianti region of Tuscany, and stayed in the 800-year-old Castello di Meleto, just outside of a small town called Gaiole in Chianti. We had some of our absolute best meals in Chianti, not to mention some very nice wine. Unfortunately, neither DH nor I is particularly educated about wines, so we usually just ordered the vino di tavola and enjoyed. The Castello is part of an active winery, and does give tours. We took the tour of the castle, but missed the timing for the vinyard tour and tasting. This, of course, means we NEED to go back!

The castle gardens were lovely. This was the morning view from our room in the castle.

Another garden shot...

Edited to add, that's our room right there with the dark shutters open on the second floor. Our bathroom was in the tower. How cool is that?!!? :)

And one more of the gardens. Did I mention they were pretty?

The hotel also had an amazing pool... which was unfortunately too cold to really swim in this early in the year.

I think this was a weed growing in the pool area, but it was sure pretty! Does anyone recognize it?

Everywhere we went, there were these small red wild poppies blooming. On the train trip from Rome to Florence, we'd pass whole fields full, sometimes growing in and around the obviously-cultivated crops and vines. I, of course, fell in love...

We spent a fair amount of time in Chianti driving around, loving the beautiful countryside...

...grooving on wildflowers (and more poppies, of course!)...

...and admiring the Italian yard art.

After all the ancient fountains and statuary, I was rather fond of this nifty little modern fountain in the middle of the town of Gaiole-in-Chianti.

Eventually we did have to leave Chianti, and go to Venice.

What can I say? I really like windowbox pictures...

Most of the hotels we stayed in had either a rooftop lounge or a courtyard that was geared towards dining al fresco. This is the courtyard at the Hotel Abbazia in Venice, a "repurposed" abbey turned hotel--one of my favorite breakfast areas.

After our time in Venice, we went back down south to the coastal town of Sorrento. Lots of the plants looked pretty familiar, although their climate is wetter and milder than ours is, they still get the high heat of summer.

A little more jasmine...