Italy Day 16 - Redo from the past

The object of today's excursions is the Boboli Gardens. When I was last in Florence, a million years ago, this was on my to-do list, but somehow never made it to the to-done list. We stopped by painfully hip coffee bar for breakfast (it was on the way, I swear!) and then headed across the river.

Along the way we encountered runners doing a 10k. The thought of running on these cobblestone streets makes *my* ankles hurt. However, it was a beautiful day for a race and it's not like it made Florence's traffic any worse.

We arrived at the Pitti Palace and had to wait online for tickets for about 30 minutes. I had looked into the Firenze Card, which would have allowed us to skip the line, but with the reservations you need to make for the Uffizi and the Duomo, I couldn't figure out how to make the card pay out. Clearly I missed something in my last minute, scrambled research, however, so don't let that deter you!

It turns out that there are separate tickets for the Pitti Palace and for the Gardens. With the Uffizi coming up in two days, I wasn't sure that I wanted to do museum walking today, so we just did the Gardens ticket. You walk through the Palace courtyard to get the Gardens and Kris tried to walk through the gate without presenting a ticket. Fortunately the gate agent and I were able to get him back on track before the ever-present Army guys intervened.

The entrance to the Gardens is absolutely stunning. It's difficult to keep in mind that these were the private relaxation areas for the Medici family. It is easy to see, however, that this would be a welcome respite from the noise and grime of the city, as it still serves that purpose today. We made out way up the main hill to the most amazing rose and peony garden. The roses here in Italy have been wonderful and almost overwhelmingly rose scented. The rose garden area offers almost panoramic views of the city. Unfortunately it's a bit hazy in Florence right now, so we couldn't see as far as we should be able to, but it's an amazing scene none the less.

From the rose garden and porcelain museum we made our way WSW to the island fountain and the cypress walkway. Along the way, we spotted a flock of parakeets nesting in elm trees. I didn't realize it was warm enough here for this species. Or, I guess that parakeets aren't tropical birds. Anyway, it was totally unexpected and pretty neat to see them flying free.

We worked out way back to the Palace where we realized that we had missed one of the main views, so up the hill we trudged again. Have I mentioned that I love my Camelback? By now the sun was pretty high and it was HOT climbing that hill! We curled our way to the Kaffehouse (alas, no coffee though) and were treated to yet another stunning view of the city. We worked our way down the hill again to the Medici Grotto. It's an amazing piece of sculpture, but it keep inappropriately reminding me of the one Pirates of the Caribbean  movie with Davey Jones where the ship consumes it's mates. All of the people were made out of shell and coral and looked vaguely unsettling to me.

At this point we realized that we had missed another garden that's just outside of the Boboli. However it would have meant yet another trip up the hill, and since we're climbing the Duomo tomorrow, we decided to rest our calves and save it for another trip. It was now well past lunchtime, so rather than head to a restaurant, we decided to go back to the central market to the food stalls. After sandwiches and a couple of adult beverages, we decided to head to the train station and check out the west side of town. The Santa Maria Novella is amazing. Running down the nave of Santa Maria is a sun  dial of sorts that shows you, at a certain time of day (noon, I'm assuming) where you are in the astrological calendar. Additionally, they have frescos over frescos and apparently if you are there on the right days, the open certain 'windows' such that you can see a fresco underneath a newer painting.

One of things I find different about this trip is the amount of Americans we're running into. It seems like the stream of annoying Americans is never ending! I really miss Grosseto where we heard almost no English and when we did hear some, it certainly had an accent. My apologies to Italy that we still seem to be living up to our stereotypes.

Anyway, tomorrow we're getting above it all by climbing to the top of the Duomo first thing in the morning. We're both a little nervous about this one. Kris doesn't love small spaces and lots of steps and I find my fear of heights is getting worse as I get older. But the view is supposed to be amazing from the top and along the way you get up close and personal with the dome frescos. We'll see 463 steps later if it's worth it!