Pratolino is a hill north of Florence where, in the 1570s, Francesco I de' Medici decided to build a pleasure ground that would amaze Europe. He commissioned Bernardo Buontalenti, an architect, engineer and theatre designer, and the result was a park of grottoes, fountains, water-powered automata and hidden jets, which wrecked visitors' clothes and delighted them in equal measure. The great survivor is the Appennine, a gigantic statue by Giambologna, about ten metres high, crouched beside a pond, a stone giant with caves inside his body and a face emerging from rock and moss. It is one of the strangest and most impressive garden sculptures in Italy.
Much of the original villa is gone, and the garden was reshaped in the nineteenth century as an English-style landscape park by the Demidoff family, so the place is a layered mixture rather than a pure survival. UNESCO includes it in the list of Medici villas and gardens. The park is seasonal, and visits are generally limited to certain days and months, so check before you go. Walking in, you pass a huge old fish pond, long avenues of beech and chestnut, and quiet corners where moss grows over damp stone.
The road up from Florence is the old Via Bolognese, the route that leads north to Bologna, and it climbs quickly past villas and hillside gardens. Beyond Pratolino, the road becomes rural, with chestnut woods, small farms and the slopes of Monte Senario, where a monastery sits among firs. The riding on the lanes nearby is excellent, with tight bends, narrow tarmac and light traffic outside weekends. The old road to Bologna over the Futa pass was part of the route of the Mille Miglia and attracts a steady stream of riders, so expect company on sunny Sundays.
Caldine and Pian di Mugnone are small villages with a bar or two, but for fuel, supermarkets and larger choices, Sesto Fiorentino, a town of about forty-five thousand people some nine kilometres off, or Florence itself, is the place to head. In summer the hills are a few degrees cooler than the city, and a picnic under the trees is a pleasure.
Go in spring, when the camellias and magnolias bloom, or in October for colour. The giant is at his best on a quiet weekday morning.