This family-run B&B, surrounded by lemon gardens, is in a modern block of flats, all recently renovated, but considering the price and location - five minutes' drive from Amalfi and Ravello - this is a very good deal.
Highlights so far include an Oranges and Lemons garden at the Spitalfields church of nursery rhyme fame, a Medieval Herber planted with odoriferous herbs at the Idler Academy, and an Edible High Road in Chiswick.
Daily guided tours take in a water theatre with grotesque, stream-spewing masks, a lemon tree garden, a topiarysculpted 'green theatre' and a labyrinth (£6; parcovilla reale.it).it
But she winnowed down the list to a few favorites that were missing from my herb garden: lemon balm, lemon grass, lemon verbena, calendula (Calendula officinalis), catnip (Nepeta cataria) and chamomile (Anthemis nobilis).
The lemon-tree garden and cozy fireplace lounge are nice bonuses.
Everywhere are stone houses with their gardens, orange and lemon trees and vegetable-gardens.
Be sure to sample the limoncello, made at the palazzo with lemons from the garden.
Unable to grow oranges and lemons in the garden, the team found other ways of introducing acidity into dishes: cider vinegar and sea-buckthorn juice crop up in many of the recipes, as do coriander and sumac, which can be used as citrus alternatives.
Lemon verbena from the garden tastes lovely in so many drinks.
Sources for Floristan and Lemon Aura include Pinetree Garden Seeds, www.superseeds.com or (207) 92073400.
A lemon tree in the garden has attracted hummingbirds when it blooms.
