More Liguria: Ventimiglia's Hanbury Botanic Gardens

 

The French border lies just a few miles west of Ventimiglia; the Maritime Alps meet the sea to form a natural border and it is the first town in Italy. Ventimiglia landed in our destination scope when we read about a place called Balzi Rossi (Red Cliffs) caves where some 185,000 years ago Cro-Magnon tenants called the place home. One of the caves has an etching of a horse that is now common only on the Russian Steppes. The other destination of our desire was Hanbury Gardens, the oldest botanical gardens on the Riviera founded in 1867.

Upon arriving at the train station, we found a tourist information center a couple of blocks away to ask how we could make it to these sites. We learned that the gardens could be accessed by a local bus but one needed a car (or cab) to make it to the caves at Balzi Rossi . So back to the train station we headed given the plethora of cabs we'd spied earlier. As Kim began to ask a driver about what it would take to go to Balzi Rossi (AND back) a woman leaned in and began asking me if we were headed to France. She and her companions wanted to go to Nice and the only way there is by cab--did we want to share one? Upon hearing the word "Nice" the driver quickly blew Kim off and as we began to observe, we quickly figured out the "lay of the land", and that is, the drivers only want fares to France. We watched as travelers organized themselves into groups for cabs to Nice and Monaco and since folks seemed to be arriving every few minutes, it became obvious that we wouldn't be taking a cab anyday soon.

As it was one of the main reasons for our interest in this area, our great disappointment and frustration spilled into just a teeny little barking at one another as we tried to move on and figure out our next move. We decided to try and find the bus to the Hanbury Gardens. Kim was able to get some basic information from the local tabbachi shop (where local bus tickets are purchased) and she was told the bus (#1) would leave at 1PM. So, still stinging from the barking, we headed for lunch to await our bus.

As is typical here in Italy, correct information must be broadly interpreted so even though we were promptly ready at 1PM, the bus didn't come for about another forty minutes. When it did, there never was any sign indicating that it was bus #1 and once the driver figured out what Kim was asking, he indicated that we should hop aboard and we began another journey of hope and trust.

Our bus was large and headed out along a small two lane winding road straight up a mountain. The views of the sea and valley below were spectacular and we became only slightly distracted by the cars coming toward us as our driver drove his rig like a speed way champ. Once again, the question of "How will we know when to get off" came up and we found that we were counting on the driver to let us know. And, he did, dropping us right at the entrance to The Hanbury Botanical Gardens--success, all thanks to Kim.

The gardens were founded by Sir Thomas Hanbury and his brother Daniel (1867). Sir Thomas was a wealthy dealer in silks and spices from Asia. He bought a villa and 30 acres and during his travels brought back rare and exotic plants from Africa, Australia, the Americas and Asia. He acclimatized the plants to coexist with native Mediterranean plants and by 1912 the garden had 6,000 species and a permanent staff of 45 gardeners. After his death, his daughter in law landscaped the gardens and took over their care. By 1930 Mussolini (an uninvited visitor) hosted Franco who allowed his soldiers to march over the plants (grrrrrrrrr). During the war, it sustained a lot of damage and it fell into decay until 1960 when the land was sold to the Italian State who turned over management of the gardens to the University of Genoa. As it turned out, the grandeur of the Hanbury Gardens and our 3 hour stroll through them more than made up for our disappointment in not making it to the Balzi Rozzi Caves. Another time, perhaps?