The Villa di Castello stands on the north-western edge of Florence, in the flat land below Monte Morello, and the huge city has grown right up to its gates. Sesto Fiorentino, a town of forty-five thousand people, is three kilometres away, and the centre of Florence a few more. The villa is one of the Medici villas that UNESCO inscribed in 2013, and it is an unusual one, because the garden is the main attraction and the house inside is plain.
The Medici bought the property in 1477, and in 1537 Cosimo I took it as his own country retreat and had the Florentine designer Niccolò Tribolo lay out a garden in a rigorous geometric plan, with fountains, a hedge-lined labyrinth and an artificial grotto decorated with carved animals and shells. This was the model for the Italian Renaissance garden, imitated in France and England, and it is still a pleasure to walk in. In the late fifteenth century, Botticelli's Primavera and the Birth of Venus were hung in the earlier villa on this site, which is why people mention it. The house today holds the Accademia della Crusca, the body that guards the Italian language, and it is not generally open the way a museum is, so check access before coming. La Petraia, a nearby Medici villa on a hill, has a tower and a garden too.
For a rider, the interest lies in what lies beyond. Florence's ring roads are fast and confusing, and the historic centre is a restricted traffic zone, with fines for entering the wrong street, so do not wander in by bike. The hills to the north offer the real pleasures. Fiesole, with its Etruscan and Roman remains, is a short climb, and farther on the Apennine roads towards the Mugello wind through chestnut woods. The Mugello circuit, where the Italian MotoGP is held each summer, is about thirty kilometres away, and the whole valley is full of bikes at weekends.
Fuel and food are easy at Sesto Fiorentino, and there are bars everywhere. A Florentine lunch means ribollita, a bread and bean soup, or lampredotto, tripe in a bun from a street stall. Come in spring or autumn for fewer crowds and clear light. July and August are hot, humid and noisy with traffic.