Boboli Gardens & Much More:Italy Blog Number 4

K.A.R.

                                                 
Howdy! Wow, who would of thought that using howdy instead of ciao would begin to sound strange? After a jam packed week in Rome, followed by a weekend paradise in the Amalfi Coast, we found ourselves in the midst of the least active week in our trip. This gave me time to finally start my clean up duty on the piles of laundry and salty bathing suits that had been used for the past six days. Our only planned trip for the week was a day trip to Florence to see the Pitti Palace, Boboli Gardens, and the Uffizi Gallery. Considering that we visited the Vatican a week before visiting Boboli, the group as a whole may have ended up with a higher expectation for gardens. But to many of us, especially the horticulture students, the Boboli Gardens showcased itself as a superbly spacious and serene palace. The garden presented a well diversified, spacious, and symmetrical style garden that took over two hours to walk through (and could have taken much longer). The Boboli Garden had a much different approach to the way they used their landscape and as well as plant selection. It obviously didn't present the extravagant showing of lavash and abundance as the Vatican Garden does, but it did showcase a vast and full landscape filled with citrus, ornamental flowers, shrubs, and enough tree species to have a forestry major stuck there for days on end. This trip to Florence really helped solidify the city as one of my all-time favorites. Florence has a way of shining vicariously though its magnificent structures, luscious landscapes, historical relevance, and everlasting culture. I will be back in Florence and that is a fact.