In the several years I've lived in Santo Spirito, morning walks around the walls of the Boboli Gardens have become common-place, even regularly saluta-ing the workers who open the entrance gates and prepare the gardens for the day. But having friends, family and groups in Florence is the perfect excuse to revisit previously the site I first visited 8 years ago but have somewhat forgotten.
The Gardens lie immediately behind
the Pitti Palace, in the Oltrarno side of Florence (Oltrarno is literally the
other side of the Arno). The Pitti Palace is basically a giant statement of,
"My house is bigger than your house!" The Gardens, thus, are the
ultimate backyard.
Walking through the gardens in
mid-November, you basically feel like they were made for you – your own
personal 11-acre secret garden. This is one of the slowest times of year in
terms of tourism in Italy - just after the October rush and before the
Christmas holidays begin. The weather is generally between 50-70 degrees F
during the day and overcast, drizzling or (fingers crossed) sunny.
The 11 acres feel more like 20
because of the way the areas and sections are broken out between hills and with
various features that make each area feel distinct and hidden away. When my
cousin Emily and I first entered from the Via Romana entrance south of the
Pitti Palace, we started with the far end of the garden, which has a large
floating island fed by an elaborate water system from the nearby Arno River,
and beautiful open green spaces.
We then wove through the various
paths that wind from the south end up towards the center of the gardens. It was
so easy walking through large hedges of shrubs and getting lost through a
gnarly forest, imagining the children that once ran through playing hide and seek. Or the
walks the Medicis and residents of the palace use to make on sunny afternoons.
Finding the center of the gardens,
standing on a mid-way point up the hill, we looked down to find the large and
open amphitheater laid out immediately behind the main section of the palace,
and up towards a beautiful fountain and the apex of the Gardens. From here you
look left to right and expect to see Medici guests from 500 years ago walking around
getting lost between the trees.
On our way out of the gardens towards
the north end is where Emily and I both found our absolute favorite parts of
all of Boboli. On a small hillside overlooking the city is a small house-like
building in a beautiful light teal color with cream and blue trim and detail
and topped with a circular, window-lined sitting room. Emily's heart was lost
immediately and her mind went to the woman of the house who surely had this
built as her private escape and reading room. In front of the house is a small
grotto and fountain with a small yard filled with lemon trees. I bet Emily was
right.
While trying to find the exit we
stumbled upon one of the most well known features of the Gardens, which became
my highlight of the day. The Grotta di Buontalenti. This over the top almost
grotesque work of art by Bernardo Buontalenti (completed 1583-1593) is a cavern
where the artwork melts and blends into the mal-formed walls and crevices. The
statue in the center is a perfect representation of Renaissance art of the
time, but seemed to me misplaced or lost in the middle of this beautifully
grotesque scene happening around it. It was strange and beautiful and I just
loved it.
Walking away from the Pitti Palace
and having explored almost every inch of the Gardens, I felt like we had spent
an afternoon exploring a true piece of the past. Emily put it perfectly when
she said that churches and museums are wonderful, but you don't always get the
sense of life and reality of the history of a place as we did that afternoon in the Boboli Gardens.
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