Scherrer Park

 

An exciting journey through time and space, where past and present, history and nature come together harmoniously.

 

In 1930, there was an old cottage with a stable on the lakeshore at the foot of the Arbòstora mountain, upstream of which stretched the vineyard and chestnut forest. At that time, Arthur Scherrer, a keen gardening artist, bought the building and the land upstream. He first renovated the house and architecturally transformed it into a splendid residence. Over the years, he created his ‘Garden of Wonders’, covering the slopes and terraces with cypresses, camellias, camphor trees, eucalyptus, cedars, araucarias, palms and bamboo groves – all exotic and oriental plants that Scherrer had admired on his business trips. Inspired by oriental landscapes and cultures, he did not limit himself to reproducing their fascinating vegetation. He reproduced several small-scale temples from the Mediterranean world and exotic countries year after year. In fact, the park includes two areas, each with a predominant style: Mediterranean and Asian. The path first passes through the Mediterranean garden terraces in renaissance and baroque style, rich in statues; it then continues through bamboo groves in the oriental landscape, which surprises with its Siamese, Arab and Indian constructions, accompanied by the flora that characterises these regions. From the park, one can admire the panorama of the Italian Gulf of Ceresio, the Varese hills and the Po Valley.