Cosimo I's wife, Eleonora of Toledo, bought a half-finished palace on the south bank of the Arno in 1549 and decided it needed a garden. The Boboli, behind the Pitti Palace, rises up a steep hill in a series of terraces, avenues and lawns, and it became the model for formal gardens across Europe, including Versailles. The design began under the sculptor Tribolo and was carried on by other Medici artists over the next century. A curved amphitheatre of grass behind the palace was used for festivals and plays, and the great grotto designed by Buontalenti has fantastical stone carvings and a Venus bathing in a hidden room.
Walking up through the Boboli is a pleasure. Cypress and ilex shade the avenues, statues emerge from hedges, and fountains play in pools. At the top, a view across the roofs of Florence takes in the dome of the cathedral and the hills of Fiesole. The Isolotto, an oval island with a pond and a ring of statues, is a calm place to sit. A ticket is needed, hours change with the season, and the garden is usually closed on the first and last Monday of the month.
Florence is a hard place for a rider, but a rewarding one. The historic centre is closed to most traffic, with cameras that fine violators, so park outside it and walk or take a bus. Cobbled streets and tram lines add slippery hazards in the rain, and summer crowds make any move slow. Once you get out of the city, the roads are marvellous. The Chiantigiana, the old road between Florence and Siena, winds through vineyards, olive groves and villages, with gentle bends and big views. The roads to the Val d'Orcia, farther south, give a taste of the Tuscan landscape you know from photographs, with cypress-lined lanes and bare green hills.
The city has three hundred and fifty thousand people and fuel at the edges. Scandicci, to the south-west, has forty-five thousand and has stations and shops. Lunch should include a bistecca alla fiorentina, a thick T-bone grilled over charcoal, or a more modest plate of ribollita, a thick vegetable soup.
Spring and autumn are the best seasons. In August the heat is oppressive and many locals leave town.