Nîmes Romaine / Arènes - Maison Carrée - Tour Magne
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The Villa is surrounded by nine magnificent gardens offering patios, waterfalls, ponds, herbaceous borders, shady paths and rare trees. These are the Florentine, Spanish French, Exotic, Japanese, Stone and Provençal gardens.
The formal French garden
The perfect symmetry of the formal French garden, overlooking all the others, is structured around a large ornamental pond, in sharp contrast to its exotic palm trees and clumps of succulent agaves.
The rose garden
The rose garden surrounds an exquisite hexagonal temple. Béatrice Ephrussi grew almost 100 varieties of roses here, one of which is named after her.
The Spanish garden
The Spanish garden, with its grotto supported by pink marble columns, its pond, dolphin fountain and pergola, is reminiscent of the world-famous gardens at Aranjuez, near Madrid.
The Florentine garden
The Florentine garden overlooks the Bay of Villefranche. At its centre is a wide horseshoe staircase framing an enchanting grotto planted with philodendron, water hyacinth and giant papyrus.
The stone garden
Set among the camphor and Judas trees of the stone garden are a wealth of arches, fountains, sculpted capitals, gargoyles and other grotesque figures dating from the Medieval and Renaissance periods.
The Japanese garden
The Japanese garden offers a mixture of dainty ceramic temples and pagodas, bamboo thickets and ornamental ponds surrounded by giant acanthus plants.
And so, the Sevres garden and the Provencal garden...