Tuscan Gardens - The pick of Tuscan gardens and villas

Fly at c. 8.30am from London Heathrow to Pisa (British Airways). On the way to Fiesole visit the Baroque garden at Villa Torrigiani, the most attractive of the group of 17th-century villas around Lucca. First of three nights in Fiesole.

Enter the enchanting world of Anglo-American gardens of the early 20th century at Villa Le Balze. Designed by Pinsent and Scott for the American philosopher Charles Augustus Strong (with Rockefeller money), it comprises a sequence of terraces, enclosed within walls or open to a spectacular view of Florence. The Villa Medicea at Castello, created from 1537 for Grand Duke Cosimo I by Tribolo and Buontalenti, is important historically – the least altered of major 16th-century gardens – and fascinating horticulturally. Nearby Petraia was made for another Medici from 1576 and later remodelled.

Villa Gamberaia near Settignano, one of the loveliest gardens in Italy; it achieved its present form during the ownership of a Romanian princess from 1896 and an American heiress after 1924. The largest of the Anglo-American gardens, La Pietra was created by Arthur Acton (father of Harold); 57 acres, ‘rooms’, vistas, a green theatre, 180 statues and much else. The afternoon is free; Fiesole is a very attractive hill-top town with Romanesque cathedral and Roman theatre; alternatively, the centre of Florence is half an hour by bus.

Though altered subsequently, the broad terraces around the villa in Fiesole built for Giovanni de Medici in the 1450s are of huge importance for the primacy attached to leisure and for embracing magnificent views. Villa Poggio Torselli has undergone a recent award-winning restoration; a magnificent avenue, a grand 17th-century house and an unexpected burst of floral and citrus abundance, surrounded by Chianti countryside. Continue south to Pienza for the first of two nights.

In the morning visit La Foce, a social and agricultural project as much as a villa and garden, but here Pinsent designed for the redoubtable Iris Origo one of the last, and some say the greatest, of the Anglo-Florentine gardens. Stop for lunch in the charming town of Montepulciano, then continue to the Castello di Celsa, an old castle converted to a palatial villa in the 16th century, with stunning gardens built in the 17th century.

Drive to Villa Vico Bello, a splendid example of a Renaissance park with an Italian garden. Lunch is included here. En route to the airport visit the Garzoni Garden, which represents a combination between Renaissance geometrics and the spectacular character of the Baroque. Fly from Pisa to Heathrow, arriving c. 9.00pm.