Gardens > Italy > Veneto > Parco Giardino Sigurtà

Parco Giardino Sigurtà

Dr Carlo Sigurtà sold the park in 1941 and it has been open to the public since 1978. There is a water garden, medicinal herb garden, grotto, dog cemetery, lakes and woodland.

Head Gardener's Comment

This is a place where history, culture and nature are in perfect harmony in ways that provide its visitors with sensations and emotions that will not be forgotten.
A visit to Parco Giardino Sigurtà is not only a regenerating day in a natural setting that extends over 600,000 sq. m, but is much much more: it is like flicking through a six-centuries long diary and reading snippets of the history of this land as penned by those characters that have lived in and transformed it over the years.

It is for these special characteristics that Parco Giardino Sigurtà has been dubbed by world-renowned botanists, and by the park's thousands of annual visitors, as one of the most extraordinary gardens in the world.

The five great flowerings of the tulips (an amazing blossom of 1.000.000 tulips), irises, roses, lilies and asters, the great oak, the award winning stunning new maze, the horizontal sundial, the hermitage, the 18 ornamental ponds and lakes with their flowers, the herb garden and the great lawn: are just some of the attractions to be enjoyed in this enchanting oasis. In addition to all of these, there are the famous box trees, sculpted by nature and the topiary of man into more than 40,000 surprising and surreal forms nature and the funny farmstead for kids and schools.

Every season here reveals ever renewing wonders to be discovered: so from March to November every day is an ideal day for visiting Parco Giardino Sigurtà.

Viale delle Rose, Parco Giardino Sigurtà

Photograph © Parco Giardino Sigurtà

Photograph © Parco Giardino Sigurtà

Photograph © Bernhard Eckert

Photograph © Bernhard Eckert

Photograph © Bernhard Eckert

History

Parco Giardino Sigurtà represents the beautiful fusion of a historical park, established in 1617, and a modern garden.

The gardens were first opened to the public on a sunny Sunday in March of 1978 and quickly became a favourite place to visit both for famed botanists and lovers of nature in general.

Strange to say this marvel was begun with the help of, of all things, a buggy. In 1941, when wartime petrol supplies were very scarce, Dr Carlo Sigurtà made his way to Valeggio, a small town famous for its traps and buggies, to buy one. When he reached Valeggio he had the providential impulse also to buy a farmstead.
The ownership of the land included rights to draw water from the river Mincio below, a right dating back to 1766. This enabled Carlo Sigurtà to year by year breathe life into the Park, transforming arid morainal hills into a place of luxuriant vegetation.

In the twentieth century the Sigurtà family hosted illustrious Nobel prize winners such as Alexander Fleming, Selman Waksman, Gerhard Domagk, Conrad Lorenz and Albert Sabin.
To the list of these celebrated visitors can be added Charles, Prince of Wales, the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the film director Luchino Visconti, the journalist Indro Montanelli and the violinist Uto Ughi.

Plants of note

Parco Giardino SigurtÃ may be visited on foot, in a relaxing walk, in a comfortable golf-cart with a GPS audioguide system or by fun trains (on the â€œEnchanted trailâ€, 7,5 km or about 30 minutes) and, for the more sporty types by bicycle, with bikes also available for rent in the Park itself. This is also an electric shuttle service for those wanting to learn more about the history and the attractions of the park, during an hour-long guided visit.
For a snack break among the sounds and perfumes of nature there are also four bars, with areas equipped for those with pack lunches and picnics.