The name “Mortella” derives from the Neapolitan dialect “myrtle” and indicates the “divine myrtle”, a plant that grows abundantly among the volcanic rocks of the hill where the garden is located. The love story between Sir William Walton and Lady Susanna Walton and how they built the garden begins in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sir William Walton, before he met Lady Susanna, had a relationship for 15 years with an older woman who helped him grow his career. In 1947 she was 46 years old, single and went to Buenos Aires for an international conference of the Performing Right Society, Susanna was 22 years old at the time and worked for the British Consulate in Buenos Aires, to a press conference organized by her, for the composer, Sir William noticed her among the journalists and decided that the woman should marry him. It was love at first sight, that same evening Mr Walton surprised Susanna by asking her to marry him, in two weeks they got engaged and married after two months, leaving the couple’s family and friends in disbelief. The spouses left for Europe, more precisely for Italy, which William had visited in 1919. Fascinated by the beauty of the Gulf of Naples, William Walton chose the island of Ischia where he lived together with his wife for 35 years. The Waltons moved to Ischia in 1949 and purchased land in the Zaro area, in the municipality of Forio where in the 1960s they began to build the garden thanks to the help of the landscape architect Russell Page, who designed the entire structure of the area of the Valley. Lady Susanna, however, took care of the upper part of the garden called the Hill and during the works supervised the choice of plants and the project which she has been dealing with for more than 50 years with love, patience and energy, hosting more than 3000 species of exotic plants , enriched by greenhouses, streams, lakes, fountains allowing the cultivation of aquatic plants. In 1991 the Mortella was opened to the public, Lady Walton created the William Walton foundation which, after the latter’s death, inherited the garden. It is an organization that continues to this day to promote music, particularly that of Sir Walton, and to look after the garden. Today, with love and dedication, the foundation also opens numerous classical music and entertainment events to the public which are performed in particular in the Greek Theatre, a stage which has the beautiful panorama of the municipality of Forio as its backdrop.
The Green Grotto of Ischia can only be reached by sea and is located south-east of the island in the bay in front of Punta della Cannuccia. Arriving on a boat and diving into the sea with a few strokes you reach a natural cavity dug into the rock. Without knowledge of the place one would absolutely not say that by going inside the small cave you can find an inlet with a very shallow seabed made of soft sand and where inside a strange phenomenon, which develops by combining the light of the sun with the reflection of the water, which colors the skin an intense green.
