GARDEN TOURISM. Il patrimonio dei giardini nei processi di fruizione e narrazione turistica

[Machine translation] In the contemporary, pandemic and post-pandemic context, heritage plays a fundamental role as a regenerator of tourism (slow, proximity, green) and a key element in the configuration of an attractive and competitive territorial identity. Gardens are undoubtedly valuable assets, perishable over time and with use, which have also been integrated into the tourist offer. The importance of gardens as heritage and tourist attraction emerges, a theme on which the volume intends to propose a reflection with particular reference to the relationship between garden, heritage and tourism. This is with a welcome and specific reference to balanced and sustainable perspectives, invoked by many parties as post-Covid-19 solutions and opportunities but also after “mass” tourism., Starting from this general framework and overall scenario, the volume offers a historical and geographical view of the origins and evolution of gardens with respect to Europe. The evolution of Western gardens, and in particular European and Italian gardens, is studied in depth by analyzing the processes of territorial and cultural “sedimentation” under the historical and geographical lens of the different conceptions and the multiple approaches adopted for their creation and for their development (garden in ancient, medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo periods; birth of public green spaces; garden in the 20th and 21st centuries)., The volume then enters the heart of the processes of tourist use and narration of gardens, highlighting garden tourism proposals and practices at European and national levels. This is starting from the origins of garden tourism, that is, the picturesque one in the 18th century); the landscape in words, or the picturesque in English romanticism; the phenomenon of country house visiting in the 19th century, with the aim of highlighting the processes of enhancement and tourist enjoyment that accompanied them. It dedicates an in-depth analysis to the development of garden tourism in the 20th century and to today's current and global situation. In addition, themes and issues related to garden branding, new audiences and future perspectives, garden tourism in the post-COVID era are included. , The last and further step is to go into detail at the geographic-territorial level, giving substance to the analyses and reflections presented in the Lake Orta case study. The intent is to focus on the premises and perspectives of an integrated project in upper Piedmont. In fact, a summary of the Garden Tourism-Next Tourism project is drawn up, developed in 2021 and early 2022 to develop a process of integrated tourist enhancement and use of the gardens present in the territory of Lake Orta, also called Cusio, in Piedmont. Based on a careful investigation of the context, the salient elements, opportunities and design perspectives related to the creation of an integrated system of Cusian gardens are revealed, in a logic of participatory and sustainable governance.