On Saturday, June 6th and Sunday, June 7th 2026, the Gardens of Villa della Pergola will participate in "Appointment in the Garden," a national awareness-raising event dedicated to Italy's parks and gardens, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and ANCI-National Association of Italian Municipalities.
The theme of this new edition is "THE VIEW".
"What do we see when we observe a garden? Sight, perhaps the noblest and most rational of the senses, helps us understand its forms and style and accompanies us, step by step, towards emotion. But the garden is not just a physical place: it is a concentration of memories and dreams. It is the place where, since time immemorial, ways of being in the world have been experimented with, between nature and culture."
This is the 2026 theme of Appuntamento in Giardino, which is intended as an invitation to multiply our gazes on the garden, to decipher its complexity, to reach the invisible through the visible. And what more suitable place to celebrate this sense than the Gardens of Villa della Pergola?
In 2026, we celebrate 20 years since the 2006 rescue, 20 years of nature's resistance and resilience against concrete, beginning with that loving gaze that saved the Gardens.
From the gaze of English travelers in 1875 to its rescue in 2006 from potential real estate speculation, up to the present day: a tale of landscape, botany, and beauty spanning over one hundred and fifty years of history of a garden emblematic of the Italian Riviera, restored to new splendor thanks to a courageous choice and an enlightened vision.
Villa della Pergola and its garden have over time become a place of contemplation, inspiration, and remembrance for different generations who have transformed and interpreted this place: from the English aristocrats who spent the winter here to the botanists and gardeners who shaped its identity, and artists, musicians, and writers such as Carlo Levi, Edward Elgar, Alfred Hitchcock, and Italo Calvino.
It is precisely the gaze that becomes the common thread of this place: a gaze that invites us to observe Alassio and the Riviera landscape with a different sensibility, from the luminous glimpses of the Baia del Sole and the Mediterranean nature to a deeper reflection on the relationship between people, landscape, and territorial transformation. It is no coincidence that, precisely by observing the Ligurian coastal landscapes, Italo Calvino, in "Building Speculation," denounced the risk of development capable of erasing identity, memory, and beauty. Fortunately, in this place, that has not happened.
FOR THIS OCCASION, A SPECIAL PRICE IS AVAILABLE ON TICKETS FOR THE DEDICATED TOUR TITLE: "The Look of Love That Saved the Gardens of Villa della Pergola 2006–2026, Twenty Years of Nature's Resistance and Resilience Against Concrete."