Boboli Garden at the Pitti Palace

The Pitti Palace from the garden - Florence is ahead of the home and to the right.

Florence, the city, is not green. The streets are gray stones, the stucco piazzas and commercial buildings are, well, those beautiful shades of stucco. But there is little green. An occasional palm in an entrance. Today we went to see green at the Pitti Palace - just south of the Arno, the grand, very grand palace purchased by Medicis in 1549 (100 years after it was built by Luca Pitti, a Florentine banker.) You would think one palazzo in the city would be enough. i guess this was their suburban palace. Then, of course there is the Medici Villa in Fiesole and some 12th Century fortress of a villa - a working farm with olives and grapes farther out in the country. Oh, to be a Medici.

Into the formal garden

The Limonaia - just LOVED these finishes!!!

The formal garden - too early for flowers, but peonies are here - I'm sure there will be lemon trees later in the Spring.

View from the garden to the surrounding hillside

Part of the original fortress at Pitti Palace.