A verandah in Kyoto overlooking an expanse of white sand, its carefully raked parallel lines broken only by a few rocks; the mysterious recesses of a Chinese garden glimpsed through a circular opening in a high wall; the dried-up fountains and watercourses of a once sumptuous Mughal garden in India; a flight of terraces in Tuscany peopled by satyrs, dwarves, monkeys and gods; the surrealistic rock sculptures of Bomarzo; the throng of deities around the Fountain of Apollo at Versailles; a grotto in England with a nymph sleeping by murmuring waters; a Scottish hillside with the golden head of a Greek god half hidden in the shrubbery - these places, disparate geographically and culturally, are linked together.