Pets & Plants in Italy !

Florence, Italy. Tom and I are visiting friends here this week. It’s winter here, but the weather is lovely, mostly sunny and in the mid-50s. One morning, deep in the warren of tiny streets created by apartments, shops, and cathedrals held up by medieval timber frames, Tom and I stopped in a leather store before heading out for garden visits.

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Before the crowds and before full daylight, Tom and I quietly stepped into a closet-sized leather shop. Tanned hides hung overhead, tiny tables piled with wallets and purses flanked a narrow walkway. At the end of the room, about 10 feet away, a graying craftsman with half glasses on looked up from his workbench. 

“Could you put another hole in this belt?” I asked.

I’d added a “Buongiorno,” but he didn’t crack a smile.

He took the belt and nodded. This chaotic shop had plenty to look at, but I focused on his strong hands stitching through thick leather. I was startled when the door jingled behind me, and a young, beefy bearded Italian man pushed his way by, stomach to stomach, then stopped abruptly.

Close in front of me, he leaned onto the floor and bellowed.

“My sweet baby! How are you this morning?” 

I looked over his broad back to see him rubbing his face on the tanned face of a knee-high dog. Truth is, y’all, my translation is based solely on the dog’s grin. Without looking up from the dog, this man put a leather handbag on the work table and said, “Can you fix this?”

The old man, holding the end of a leather belt in his lips, said, “Presto!” with a sort of grimace/smile as best he could. Jingles behind me again. Oh no, I thought. We really can’t fit another person in here. But a thick, blond woman wearing a cream-colored dress pushed past Tom. She stopped, smiled at me, and leaned right into my shoulder but passed me to scratch a cat curled on a shelf. She said, in English,

“My, you are so cozy! Cozy you are, aren’t you, my lady?” 

The old man smiled. 

Maybe I should have talked to the animals before I requested a new belt hole. I know the tricks of travel and conversation. I like to talk to people. Dog and cat chat is a winning icebreaker. 

Plants, especially if you know Latin names, can open a smile-filled conversation across any language barrier. Tom and I have done plenty of garden visiting on these chilly days in Florence. I include in that looking at plants that grow as weeds, sneaking down to walk along the river marsh, talking to ladies at the flower stand, and, of course, at the markets filled with beautiful produce. The photos from city gardens follow— though, as you’ll see, ‘city garden’ is different here. The first garden spans 110 acres!

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Y’all enjoy the city gardens today while we take a country excursion to visit vineyards, farms, and two medieval towns in the Tuscan hills. I’ll post pictures and write about that on Sunday, but today, I’ll leave you with city garden pictures and a little scrapbook of our days in the city of Florence.

Boboli Gardens — the following photos, ending with a map of Boboli Gardens, flow up and down the hills on the East side of Florence.

A garden within Boboli Garden and a vista out the garden from the highest point.

The gardens seen from inside the palace. The band of green trees rimming the hills hold gardens and paths within the forest. These long views on the axis are mid-16th century style. This garden is one of the first and most important examples of Italian Renaissance gardens.

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Around town, there are flowers everywhere. One vendor sold a plant that I call pepper weed, seen here -- airy green seeds pods in a boquet.

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In the nearby 17th-century Bardini Gardens, the entire place rests on a steep slope. Hedges and plants defy gravity. But the true marvel of this place is the engineering and routing of rain — without those ditches and canals, the place would have washed away.

Tom walks under the wisteria arbor. This is a much smaller garden. The photo below is not mine, but it shows the wisteria in flower and the city in the valley.

The Bardini Gardens really have three different garden styles side by side — Left, a romanticized agricultural garden of fruits and vines; Center, a formal, linear view garden; and Right, the meandering woodland gardens.