Ciao, Florence
Our ticket to the Uffizi Gallery yesterday also included access to the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens, but with all we had packed in, there was no way we could fit in two more stops (or mentally focus on what was there). We’re picking up a rental car at lunch and heading deeper into Tuscany which leaves the morning to tick a couple more items off the list. Not before we power up with a quick morning jolt and what may very well be the most delicious pastry of all time.
The Pitti Palace was the primary residence of the rulers of Tuscany, starting with the Medici family who purchased it in 1549 and set about both enlarging it and adding the surrounding land that would become the formal gardens (the Boboli Gardens). It is a few blocks and across the Arno river from the Palazzo Vechhio and Uffizi (which were government offices before being converted to a museum) but all were connected together to allow those in power to move freely without having to mix with the common folk. Above the shops on the Ponte Vechhio you can still see the passageway
As with all things Medici, the palace was soon filled with art from all of the usual suspects. Unlike the Uffizi though, this place is virtually empty, making it far more relaxing to try and take it all in. The collection is no less impressive with rooms full of works from Raphael, Ruebens, Van Dyck and others. In a museum back home, just having a couple of these pieces would be enough to draw a crowd yet here it seems like they are everywhere you look.
Behind the palace are 11 acres of gardens. We’re starting to run short on time at this point so walk through just small potion, but you could easily spend the better part of a day here.
For a big city, we’ve enjoyed Florence more than expected and, should our travels take us this way again, it wouldn’t take much convincing to hang out here for a bit and take things at a slower pace. However, armed with a car only slightly longer than it is tall (and a bag of pastries because we couldn’t walk back by the bakery and not stop), we’re now free to explore the countryside. For the next five days, the small town of Barga (about 90 minutes from Florence) will be our new base of operations. It is much more mountainous than we were expecting (when I think of Tuscany it is rolling hills covered in grape vines) so we are curious to do some exploring and start the next chapter of our adventure.