Close your eyes, take a deep breath and smell the roses.
See the picturesque pink flowers, panoramic Florentine views and a pastel-pink building that hosts a porcelain museum.
Sunlight beats down all around you, illuminating the open air above the knee-high hedge maze where trendy tourists take the time to get the perfect shot for their Instagram posts.
Every shade of pink is represented in the roses, from the brightest red to a shockingly brilliant white. Flowers litter the hedge maze, climb the stone walls and cluster in the gap between the fenced-off area and the steep drop down to the edge of the park.
You’re ready to pack your bags and head off to whatever remote corner of the world that this paradise is in, aren’t you?
Believe it or not, this glorious garden is only 10€ to visit and is in the easily accessible Florence, Italy. Unless you also want to see the equally magnificent Pitti Palace Museum and breathtaking Uffizi Gallery, then it’ll cost you a little more (the price of the combined ticket changes depending on the time of the year and amount of tourist traffic).
Located right next to Pitti Palace, the Boboli Gardens is a landmark of European landscaping. The gardens were established in the sixteenth century by the Medici family. Over the subsequent centuries, more and more people left their mark on Florence’s famous open air museum.
Cosimo de’ Medici carefully selected Niccolò Tribolo to design his new ducal palace. (While they ruled Florence, the Medici were referred to as dukes). However at least three other architects shaped the gardens while it was still in construction.
The garden spent the 1600s, 1700s and 1800s growing until it reached its current 111 acres. The Medici and Lorraine families – the Lorraine family succeeded the Medicis – increased the garden’s grandeur by placing statues and fountains of all shapes and sizes throughout the garden’s many levels.
You can enter Boboli Gardens through a few different entrances located on its different sides, but the main entrance where you can buy tickets is shared with Pitti Palace. (The two museums also share a ticket window.)
As they enter the gardens, visitors are greeted by the imposing Boboli Amphitheatre. It’s an intimidating view. The sloped path upward passes around a unique Egyptian obelisk and the Neptune Fountain, named for the trident-holding statue in the middle.
But you don’t have to go straight up and down. In fact, doing that means you’d miss out on the garden’s best hidden treasures.
If you ascend the gardens through one of the towering hedge paths to the left, it feels like you’re climbing your way up the Mount Olympus of myth. The numerous grottos with statues only add to that wondrous feeling.
If you get lost, no worries – there are several signs at every major crossway, telling you where certain sights are. There are also some maps with the ever-helpful “You are here” dot on them.
However, one sight not to be missed isn’t labeled. It’s off to the left, up one of the hedged paths. Follow it until you get to a green building near a grassy area, and you’ll get the most spectacular view of Florence.
The Duomo is dwarfed by the mountains surrounding Florence. The buildings that seem impossibly high from the ground look like Barbie houses that Barbie herself could play with. And all that looks so small compared to the extreme expanse of the blue sky over everything.
From that spot, you can follow a less extreme slope up to the Old Coffee House, which has stairs on either side that will lead you to the rose garden.
The view from the top is indescribable. It’s spectacular, it’s stunning, it’s sublime.
It’s a view of Florence that can’t quite be compared to any other. Climbing the Duomo involves a lot of arranging and stairs; hiking to Piazzale Michelangelo involves a lot of stamina and more stairs; but a leisurely walk to the top of the Boboli Gardens is a perfect solution for those who can’t handle Europe’s many, many stairs.
Looking a little closer to home, the flowers at the top are thriving incandescently. The Italian sunlight makes the carefully landscaped roses grow like there won’t be another tomorrow.
And the aroma.
The whole area is defined by the perfume-y scent from the sheer number of roses growing in the gardens. The fragrance is powerful, but not overwhelming like your grandmother’s bathroom.
The whole experience makes you feel like you’re in another world. A place where’s it’s always spring, people live carefree lives and everything is a gentle pink.
“I never want to leave,” said Katie, from Los Angeles. “It’s prettier than I thought things could even be.”
Heading back down from the top, complete your circle by continuing to your left. There should be a larger grassy area where people lay down on their jackets and bask in the sun. This is also a great area to have a sunset (or any time of day) picnic.
Covering those few things will take you about two whole hours, but it would be incredibly easy for you to spend a whole day wandering around.
If you have the time: go looking for the secret grottos, get unquestionably lost and leave though an exit you know you didn’t enter though, but can’t find a better way to escape.
The gardens are a delightful, dreamy space where Italians can go to relieve a pre-Industrial past. It’s enchanting enough that you wouldn’t be surprised if you turned around a corner and ran a Roman god in their natural habitat.
It’s not some old, dusty statues in an overgrown garden. It’s the beautiful Boboli Gardens.
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