The impossible garden

A garden hidden between earth and rock. It is one of the many stories that tell the story of our country well, that of a woman who, in defiance of everything and everyone, proved that the impossible is possible and returned a vast territory to the community as a heritage to be defended and cultivated. On this island full of sun and wind, hypogean gardens are an ancient tradition, and so is the garden of the impossible, a world hidden from the distracted eye, under and beyond a dry-stone wall, along one of the many dirt roads that criss-cross the island of Favignana. When Maria Gabriella Campo moved here in the 1970s with her husband, all that was waiting for them was a small prefabricated house scattered across the barren countryside. Favignana was not, at the time, the tourist destination we know today, social life was scarce. Maria Gabriella had plenty of free time, perhaps too much, so she began to dedicate herself to cultivating that barren and tiring land against everyone's advice. Today the garden has 40,000 square metres of botanical gardens and 300 plant species from all over the world. Today, with Villa Margherita, a complex of small independent houses, the garden is one of the most popular tourist destinations on the island. This vast space full of charm is also an open-air museum of the ancient art of quarrymen who extracted, for centuries, large blocks of blond limestone exported all over the Mediterranean. Visit the site