The Italian gardens hoping to change tourism

Planning a post-vaccination vacation this year? Chances are, you'll be spending a lot of time outdoors.
With destinations slowly opening up for tourism again, and travelers tentatively booking flights, travels that take in the great outdoors look set to boom post-pandemic.

And in Italy -- the first country to be flattened by the pandemic, and one of Europe's hardest hit destinations -- things are no different.

Italians have spent months mostly confined to their homes at various stages during the pandemic. Now, they're itching to get outside.

But it's not just the Italians. Travelers to Italy are searching for outdoor holidays, sports, and activities, according to Italy's national tourism agency, ENIT -- there's even been a strong growth in demand for camping.

"Last year the impact of the pandemic was less strong in mountain areas," says marketing director Maria Elena Rossi.

But for 2021, she says, people are all about nature, outdoor relaxation and open-air activities.

Pierluigi Serlenga, who wrote a report for management consultancy Bain & Company about post-pandemic travel trends for their Travel Digital Summit, says that there's a real search for "more customized and more flexible open-air, individual experiences."

And he says Italy is not only rising to the challenge -- but that it might also help counter any return of overtourism.

"It's very positive," he says. "There's a clear willingness to diversify and extend the offer beyond the traditional [city] destinations."

The great (scented) outdoors
It's in that brave new outdoor world that Italy's gardens are seeing a resurgence.

Alongside the Renaissance art that draws visitors from all around the world, Italy has gardens and green spaces dating back centuries.

The world's first botanical garden was created in Padua in 1545. Still open for visits today, it has preserved its original layout: a circular central plot, symbolizing the world, surrounded by a ring of water.

And that's just the beginning, says Judith Wade, who's spent 40 years promoting Italy's botanic heritage as founder of Grandi Giardini Italiani (Great Italian Gardens), a private network of nearly 150 of Italy's most beautiful gardens scattered all the way down that famous boot.

Before the pandemic, 8 million people visited the network of gardens -- and although numbers were down for obvious reasons last year, she says that once they reopened in July 2020, numbers immediately shot up by 35% year on year.

Wade is hoping for a spectacularly successful 2021 -- and says that Italy's gardens have the potential to change tourism for the better.

Her network helps owners of private gardens promote their properties -- thereby generating income and jobs for the local community in places that otherwise risked remaining undiscovered.

Take Villa Arconati, outside Milan, for example.
Dating from the early 17th century, it was in a state of complete disrepair.when current owners Cesare and Isabel Rancilio got their hands on it 25 years ago.

The estate is of huge cultural and historic importance -- it used to house some of Leonardo da Vinci's original codexes, say the owners, and today, what the Rancilios claim is the largest Roman statue in northern Italy takes pride of place.

The restoration work has been enormous. Even today, frescoes lining the walls of the villa are being painstakingly restored and in some cases uncovered -- after having been painted over.

The vast gardens have been pruned, and the many fountains and theaters have been given a new lease of life.

Today, the villa and its garden is home to the Augusto Rancilio Foundation, established in memory of Cesare's brother.

Locals have embraced its new direction, says cultural curator Sonia Coraim, who grew up in Bollante, the village next door.

"As a child it was always a dream of mine to visit Villa Arconati," she says.

"My father used to bring me here and I would stare at the gates imagining what lies beyond."

Over 100 local volunteers help out on property.