A fertile land and a mild climate that make the difference, with a great passion that time has not affected. The Ravino Gardens are a happy and successful combination of all these elements. And in fact 400 species of plants from five continents grow there. Mostly tropical "succulents", but also a large representation of Mediterranean flora, in accordance with the specificity of the island.
The creator of this green masterpiece was Captain Giuseppe D'Ambra, who in his travels around the world began to develop a passion for "succulent" plants in the 1960s. And he soon began collecting them, each time bringing something new on his returns to the island. Where the new arrivals, looked after by the captain, showed that they found ideal conditions to grow and reach dimensions not different from those of the many areas of origin.
From his travels D'Ambra had accumulated three thousand specimens of "succulent" at Villa Ravino. As chance would have it, in 2000 a beautiful six thousand square meter vineyard was put up for sale in front of the villa. The ideal opportunity to sort out the collections. After years of work to transfer the thousands of specimens to the open ground, the inauguration of the Gardens arrived in 2005: the captain's creation became reality with the support and contribution of his wife Edith, his sons and daughters-in-law.
An acclimatization botanical park, the Ravino Gardens today host the largest and most varied collection of succulent plants in Europe. A spectacular miscellany of shapes, colours, dimensions and origins that evokes the spirit of a botanical garden and that transforms the visit to the garden into an ideal journey, concentrated in time and space, to a multiplicity of habitats distributed in all areas of the planet.
Among all these botanical peculiarities there is also Wollemia nobilis, a green fossil thought to be extinct until 1994, when a station of it was found in the Wollemi National Park of the Blue Mountains in Australia. Two specimens of that species are found at Ravino.
The seeds and fruits of the cacti, different in every season, become an original cocktail that can be enjoyed in the Cactus Lounge Cafè, while in an ancient cistern the Moby Dick Room hosts various cultural events throughout the year.
Information
The garden is open on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 6pm.
The cost for a full ticket is 10€ while children 6 to 12 years old and residents pay 50 percent; under 5 years old admission is free
