Boboli

Boboli Gardens, an appendage to the Pitti Palace and worth a visit just for themselves. Austere, formal and comprising as much gravel and sculpture as any living plants. Despite this, they provide a relaxing respite from the chaos of the tourist thronged palaces and museums. There is something quite delightful wandering about in the intense summer heat beating down of the privet and other hedges, raising nostalgia-inducing scents as you pass by. For some reason, the time I visited, it seemed that not only were there no flowers on any of the plants, there was some kind of conspiracy, in collaboration with the Belvedere, to replace the normal leaves on the trees with either metallic golden substitutes...or large rocks. Most bizarre.

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