Boycott Boboli Gardens!

So, this morning we planned to go to the Boboli Gardens, which offer a nice retreat from the noise and insanity of the streets of Firenze. Most people know that the Boboli Gardens are essentially the back yard to the Palazzo Pitti, which was the home of the Medicis for a while, and they are therefore attached the Pitti, which has for years been a huge, labyrinthine museum. Since I've never been all that enamored with much of what's in the Pitti, I always went to the southern gate of the Boboli Gardens, where one could buy tickets for the Boboli Gardens only, which was much cheaper than the ticket for the entire complex.

Sadly, that trick doesn't work anymore. We strolled leisurely to said southern gate, only to find out that now you can only buy a ticket for the entire Pitti compound - museum and all its galleries, the gardens, everything - and it costs 10 euros a pop. We bit the bullet and went in anyhow, as we were bent on spending a tranquil morning strolling through the Boboli Gardens - but never again! Oh well... From now on, if we want tranquility, we'll go up to Fiesole or something.

We did breeze through part of the Pitti, just on principle, where we saw a costume exhibit that Terezia liked (featuring an array of gowns from 18th century to the present, as well as some fragments of old Medici garments), but as I've always said, the Uffizi has a much better collection of art overall.

Continuing with the mild Boboli annoyances, when we went up to the hilltop portion of the garden adjacent to Fort Belvedere (which has spectacular views of the undeveloped hillsides of the Oltrarno), they roped off the entire edge of the garden, so that you could not get within 10 feet of the ledge from which you stand to admire the view. The iron railing that lines the ledge now has a bunch of these signs attached to it:

I mean, c'mon, what kind of idiot is going to fall over this ledge? Well, maybe some idiot actually did, hence the sign to prevent further accidents and resultant lawsuits? Who knows? Regardless, we and several others broke the rules, hopped the chain, and went up to the ledge anyway. I thought it would've been fun if someone came and threw us off the premises, but nothing happened.

Terezia breakin' the law!

We'd been walking around so much the past few days that we decided to be more leisurely this afternoon. We people-watched from the Loggia dei Lanzi, and later, from the steps of Santa Croce. After more tasty Gelateria dei Neri gelato, we made our way home and cooked a tasty dinner with the pappardelle and porcinis that we bought.

Dinner at the apartment!

Only two full days in Florence left - this week has gone by so fast. :(

See the full set of photos of our trip to Florence here.