Another very interesting and beautiful walking tour day. The weather continues to be fantastic with no rain and sunny days into the upper 60’s. The Pitti Palace is an over the top, and once upon a time palace and now turned into a museum. The grounds of the palace, called the Boboli Gardens are a vast botanical garden that provide many great views of the city of Florence from the hilltop location.
Piti Palace
The Pitti Palace was built in 1458 by a wealthy Florentine banker named Luca Pitti. It is located across the Arno River near the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge.
The Medicis, the current ruling family, bought the palace in 1549 to use as their main residence.
The Pitti palace retained its name and was used in the late 18th century as Napolean’s base of operations and then later as home to Italy’s king.
The palace is now a museum and weighs in at 350,000 square feet. The place seems to go on forever and I’m sure there are many areas off limits to the museum patrons. I’d love to see all the secret passages and dungeons!
After the palace tour we were off to search out a place for lunch and of course the after lunch coffee.
Boboli Gardens
This is another example of the over-the-top lavish ways to spend their Medici money. The gardens were designed and built for the wife of Cosimo Medici and are an example of Italian gardens.
The gardens include statues, fountains, caves, and a grotto built by Boutalenti.
The 111-acre gardens are located directly behind the Pitti Palace. They are built on a hilltop, so from the palace, we walked up a massive hill with many steps to reach the top. It took maybe a half hour, but what a view of the city from up there.
Wrap Up
Thanks for following along! In the next update, we buy some tickets for the high-speed bullet train bound for northern Italy! We have another week to enjoy at this Florence location before moving on to Barcelona, Spain.
Take care and God Bless.