Day 1 - updated

Today the group tour began.  Our first stop was lunch,  at a restaurant at Vicopisano.

Then our first stop was Villa la Pietra.  This villa and its garden are now owned/been bequeathed to New York University.  The gardens were being restored in the Tuscan tradition.  Apparently in the first part of the nineteen century, Brits bought up the villas and converted the gardens into English-type ones.  Locals also followed this fashion.  At the end of the nineteenth century and the  twentieth century, there was a move to restore these gardens in the traditional Tuscan format.  Which was happening here.  I heard one of the British people comment that a garden could be beautiful with just green.  So gardening isn't just gardening!
Villa la Pietra - the front
  And some views of the gardens:



Apparently this villa is subject to a lawsuit involving a descendant of an illegitimate child of Arthur Acton.  Arthur's son, Harold inherited the property, and bequeathed it to NYU. Case ongoing. Details here.