Como is a stunningly beautiful ancient town with more than 400 years of history located at the tip of Lake Como, which is about an hour drive from Milan. Among the many things to see and do is Villa Carlotta with its breath-taking gardens that house more than 500 species of plants from around the world.
Villa Carlotta was built at the end of seventeen century by the Milanese marquis Giorgio Clerici in the basin between a lake and mountains, facing the dolomite Grignas and the peninsula of Bellagio.
In 1801, Gian Battista Sommariva, a famous politician, businessman and patron of arts, bought the villa. Sommariva's heirs sold the villa in 1843 to Princess Marianne of the Netherlands, the wife of Prince Albert of Prussia for the price of 780,000 Liras.
Princess Marianne gave it as a wedding present to her daughter Carlotta on the occasion of her marriage to Georg of Sachsen-Meiningen (1826-1914), which explains the origin of the name - Villa Carlotta. Carlotta died in 1855 at a young age of 23. The villa remained with the Sachsen-Meiningens until the outbreak of the World War I.
We will let the pictures from the gardens tell some of the stories of this place of rare and serene beauty, and additional pictures can be seen here.
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