{"id":1619,"date":"2026-09-27T14:33:32","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T14:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visitbordighera.com\/?post_type=luogo&p=1619"},"modified":"2026-09-30T18:15:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T18:15:18","slug":"giardini-monet","status":"publish","type":"luogo","link":"https:\/\/visitbordighera.com\/en\/places\/giardini-monet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Giardini Monet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Along the Via Romana, a stone\u2019s throw from the Canary Island pine<\/a>, a small public garden bears the name of Claude Monet. It is one of the last fragments of the Moreno Garden, the park that at the end of the 19th century was famous throughout Europe and that in 1884 enchanted the Impressionist painter: here, among palms and plants from every corner of the world, Monet found some of the most luminous subjects of his stay in Bordighera.<\/p>\n

\u201cA garden like that is indescribable, it is pure magic, all the plants in the world grow there in the open ground\u201d<\/em> \u2014 Claude Monet, letter to Alice Hosched\u00e9, 5 February 1884.<\/p>\n

The Moreno Garden, one of the most famous in Europe<\/h2>\n

The story begins around 1830, when Vincenzo Moreno, a wealthy olive oil merchant from Bordighera, began collecting seeds and exotic plants on his travels and planting them on his estate. His son Francesco, also an olive oil merchant and French consul, continued the work: the property grew to about eighty hectares, from the sea up to the hill, with olives, oranges, lemons, mandarins and palms alongside rare species from far away.<\/p>\n

By the end of the 19th century the Moreno Garden was one of the wonders of the Riviera and its fame reached well beyond Italy: writers, artists and travellers asked to visit it. But it was not open to everyone. You needed a letter of introduction.<\/p>\n

Monet in the Moreno Garden<\/h2>\n

Claude Monet arrived in Bordighera in January 1884 for a three-week stay that turned into almost three months, lodging at the Pension Anglaise<\/a>. When he heard about the garden of \u201ca certain Monsieur Moreno\u201d, which could not be visited without an introduction, he managed to get himself introduced.<\/p>\n

He was won over: on 5 February he was already writing enthusiastically to Alice Hosched\u00e9, describing it as an earthly paradise, a tangle of palms of every variety where the plants seemed to grow of their own accord. In the garden he painted some of his most famous canvases of the period:<\/p>\n