Pictures worth a thousand words.

I have discovered two things that I wouldn't have known about myself. My favorite buildings are those most decayed, often the out buildings rather than the main villa. And that my favorite gardens are those that are completely green except for the lemons. It gets back to one of Edith Wharton's six principles of a successful garden - that it be simple in design. The busiest ones looked like patchwork quilts and made me tired to look at them. The simple green ones are like a womb - you just want to crawl in and never leave.

So, here we have one villa (which really means the whole of the home, gardens, agricultural areas if there are any and the out buildings.) It is called Villa Reale, the "royal villa" and is privately owned. The owners live here part of the year but in a small apartment above the stables which was my favorite building - the building with the amazing ochre doors. The main villa is rather obvious here. Every thing else is practically abandoned and left in the most beautiful decaying state. I did my best to capture the colors of the stucco, plaster, stone and paint. I think this villa could stand alone as a course in color palettes for architects and designers of all kinds. It turned out to be my favorite villa of the week for that reason. the materials were just delicious.