Having visited the galleries, the museums, the cathedrals and churches of Florence, there can be no better way to spend a day than by sauntering through the gardens of the Tuscan capital, many of which were created by the very same family who filled the city with the majority of its artworks: the Medici.
It was this all-powerful dynasty who commissioned the construction of the Giardino di Boboli, annexed to the Palazzo Pitti, thus creating an immense 45 thousand square meters of green paradise in the heart of the city. One of the finest examples of 16th century Italian formal gardens, the Boboli was built on a triangular plan with two steeply sloping orthogonal axes which meet at the height of the Bacino di Nettuno. You should expect to spend at least three hours visiting this enormous garden and those with a particularly keen interest in plants and gardens will want to stay longer.
Another must for the botanist, amateur or professional as he or she may be, is the Giardino dei Semplici, Florence University's Botanical Garden. It was Cosimo I de'Medici who decided to found an academy to study and cultivate plants with medicinal properties - the so-.called "semplici". Since 1545, this garden has accumulated a collection of over 9000 plant species, some of which extremely rare, the majority conserved within green houses. The Giardino dei Semplici also boasts a fascinating collection of aquatic plants.
Once again, it was Cosimo I de'Medici who decided to use the land of the Cascine, on the right hand bank of the Arno river, for the breeding of cattle and as hunting reserve. Now a public park, the Cascine Park is a veritable institution in Florence, a place where the locals come to play sport, have a pic-nic, or simply relax. The Cascine's historic velodrome, named after one of Italy's most famous cyclists, the Florence- born Gino Bartoli, reopened in 2003 on the completion of extensive restoration work.
Finally, for those lucky enough to be in Florence in the month of May, there are two very special gardens which more than merit a visit, both of which only open their gates to the general public during this, the fifth month of the each year, for the occasion of the flowering season. The Giardino delle Rose and the Giardino dell'Iris, both situated in the vicinity of the wonderfully panoramic Piazzale Michelangelo, vie with each other to produce the most spectacular display of colour. The Giardino dell'Iris has over two thousand varieties of Iris, the flower which has been the symbol of Florence since the 12th century, when it was used to adorn the silver coins of the Florentine Republic.
