Jardin de Boboli and Villa de Cerreto Guidi

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Jardin de Boboli

   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.

   Read the complete Jardin de Boboli write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Jardin de Boboli is where the day begins. Next is Villa de Artimino.

2. 2. Villa de Artimino

   The Medici liked to hunt, and Ferdinando I wanted somewhere to do it. In the late sixteenth century the grand duke commissioned the architect Bernardo Buontalenti to build him a hunting lodge on the hill of Artimino, west of Florence, and the result was a large, plain and strangely beautiful villa with a loggia, a terrace and a forest of chimneys. It is nicknamed the villa of the hundred chimneys, though there are fewer than that, and the stacks along the roofline give the building a rhythm that you can recognise from a long way off. It is one of the Medici villas and gardens that UNESCO listed in 2013 for the way they shaped the Italian idea of a country house.

   Read the complete Villa de Artimino write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Villa de Artimino comes up about 23 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villa de Cerreto Guidi.

3. 3. Villa de Cerreto Guidi

   Cosimo I de' Medici liked to hunt, and in the 1560s he had a villa built on a hilltop at Cerreto Guidi, on the edge of the marshes and woods west of Florence, where the game was plentiful. From the outside it is austere, a solid block of stone facing a square, but the approach is spectacular: a pair of great brick ramps, known as the Medici bridges, zigzag up to the entrance. The villa is part of the UNESCO listing of the Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany, and it holds a dark legend. Cosimo's daughter Isabella died here in 1576, and the story goes that she was murdered by her husband, Paolo Giordano Orsini, for her alleged infidelity. Whether it is true or not, it is told to every visitor.

   Read the complete Villa de Cerreto Guidi write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 45 km into the recorded legs you reach Villa de Cerreto Guidi. Next is back through Villa de Artimino.

4. 4. back through Villa de Artimino

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Villa de Artimino write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Villa de Artimino, late in the day. Next is Jardin de Boboli.

5. 5. Jardin de Boboli

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Jardin de Boboli write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Jardin de Boboli. That is the ride.