A Night at Villa Cimbrone: Exploring the Gardens of Ravello under the Buck Moon
7 July 2025, by Susy Pepe. Photos courtesy of Villa Cimbrone
On the Amalfi Coast, there’s a garden where beauty isn’t just ornamental, it’s something you feel, something that makes you think.
For one night only, under the glow of the full moon, Villa Cimbrone in Ravello will open its gates to the public. On Wednesday 9 July 2025, under the Buck Moon, visitors can explore the gardens after hours, from 8:45 PM to 10:00 PM, in an intimate and quietly extraordinary evening walk, ending with the moonrise as seen from the legendary Terrace of Infinity, suspended between sky and sea.
The Buck Moon, named by Native American tribes, marks the time when male deer begin to grow new antlers, a symbol of silent renewal. In astrology, it appears when the sun is in Cancer, a time for introspection, care, and deep emotional awareness.
“For this occasion,” says Donato Marzolla, general manager of the Vuilleumier family’s hotel, “We’ve chosen to open the gates of Villa Cimbrone in the evening to offer residents and visitors a truly unique experience of moonlit discovery, immersed in an extraordinary landscape, with the option to linger at our panoramic bar or enjoy a drink at the V Lounge Cocktail Bar.”
The enchantment of Villa Cimbrone. Where the garden listens. And the moon answers.
Strolling through the green geometry of Villa Cimbrone at dusk, as day slips away and night quietly arrives, is like stepping into another rhythm of time.
The pace slows. Gravel crunches softly underfoot. Cypress trees whisper in the breeze. The moon casts a silvery glow over statues, shimmering on the sea below. An owl breaks the silence with the beat of its wings. It’s a shared meditation, quiet, wordless, profound.
The main path unfolds gently between tall cypresses and manicured lawns. Slowly, statues appear, silent watchers in a garden that is also an open-air museum. In the rose garden, the air thickens slightly. It’s more intimate here. Old and rare varieties bloom in gentle disarray, uncontrived, modest, quietly fragrant.
The path leads toward one of the garden’s most symbolic corners: the small temple at the entrance to the Terrace of Infinity.
Here stands Demeter, Greek goddess of the harvest, carved with a sheaf of wheat in her hand, as if blessing the land’s fertility. At night, her presence intensifies. Under the moonlight filtering through the portico, she feels almost sacred. Still and solemn, as though she’s watching over the garden, and those who pass through it.
And then, all at once, the view opens.
Like a breath stretching to its furthest edge, the Terrace of Infinity appears, dramatic, suspended, dreamlike.
White statues line the balustrade like ancient figures in prayer, gazing out over the timeless sea of the Amalfi Coast, now wrapped in midnight blue and moonlight.
You stop. Breath held. There’s nothing else to do.
In many cultures, the Buck Moon is a time for reflection, for gathering herbs, for setting intentions.
For one night only, Villa Cimbrone becomes a natural temple for that ancient energy.
Walking through memory: Lord Grimthorpe and the V Club
This is more than a night visit. It’s a ritual of beauty. An invitation to explore a landscape that also mirrors the soul.
Villa Cimbrone was conceived as a retreat, an eccentric and visionary refuge shaped in the early 20th century by Lord Grimthorpe, a British nobleman and humanist who sculpted his dream into the cliffs of Ravello. He bought the old estate in 1904 and transformed it into a tapestry of styles: Gothic, Classical, Moorish.
But it was the gardens, perched on the Cimbronium promontory, that captured his spirit most. Redesigned in the early 1900s with input from British horticulturist Vita Sackville-West, they cover nearly six hectares, and are one of the finest examples of Anglo-Saxon landscape design in Southern Europe. They’re open year-round, with tickets available daily.
In the 1920s, the gardens became a meeting place for members of the Bloomsbury Group, gathered in what they called the V Club, named after the villa itself. Among them: Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, E. M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, and Vita Sackville-West.
Here, walking the Avenue of Immensity, they shared thoughts about freedom, art, and Europe’s future, shaping a humanism that was deeply personal, and quietly revolutionary.
In the 1960s, Villa Cimbrone was acquired by the Vuilleumier family of Ravello, who continue to care for it with devotion to this day.
📍 Villa Cimbrone – Via Santa Chiara 26, Ravello (SA)
📅 Wednesday, 9 July 2025
🕰 Evening opening hours: 8:45 PM – 10:00 PM (last entry) – Standard ticket € 10
✨ An experience to be enjoyed slowly, in silence.
