Among the numerous Italian and foreign gardens which may be visited today, the Hanbury Botanic Gardens occupy quite a special place. Involved, in fact, is an execeptional acclimatization area where exotic plants arriving from all regions of the world, live together in the open air even though out of their natural environment. Visitors may not expect to find a garden rich with borders and regularly set flowers-beds and not even well-kept lawns: involved, rather, is an ensamble of plants living freely, which bloom, fruits and produce fertile seeds, thus completing the biological cycle they have in nature. Frequently, just in respect of what happens in the spontaneous state, they dry leaves of the previous year are left on the plant and appear as they do in the forest or deserts from which they come. The allure of the Hanbury Botanic Gardens lies in this wonderful cohabitation: in fact, during the various seasons, colours and forms alternate here which only nature is able to offer to our view.

The Hanbury Botanic Gardens were created in 1867 when Sir Thomas Hanbury, holidaying on the Côte d'Azur , was struck by the beauty of Cape Mortola, near Ventimiglia, and began to purchase , piece by piece, part of the land which later amounted to eighteen hectares. A pastureland zone was involved , bounded on three sides, by mountains which protected it from the wind , and to the south-east, washed by a flawless sea.