Sunday, July 3, 2011

Italy Day 6: Ponte Vecchio and Giardino di Boboli

Continuing on our trip down the River Arno, we saw (and I photographed) so many pretty scenes.




This is the famous Ponte Vecchio, which is really cool because of the shops built into the side of the bridge.

Love locks, although now illegal, are still found all over the bridge.  The locks all have initials written or carved into them and after locked to the bridge, the keys are chucked into the river, since the lovers will never part.  Although the basic premise of the locks is romantic and 'awww' worthy, the thought of all that extra litter in the name of love is just a bit uncomfortable.

View of a bridge from a bridge.  That's got to be some kind of irony right?

After wandering down and then across the Arno we ended up at the Palazzo Pitti and the Giardino di Boboli.  The gardens and palace were beautiful, but my two major complaints were that it was really expensive to get in and after you get in, there is no where to sit and relax until you climb all the way up into the gardens, which are built onto a very large hill.  We had been walking around quite a bit by this point, and all I wanted to do was sit down, so the first few "Do not sit on the lawn" did not go over well.
Looking down upon the palace from the gardens.

Super cute little out building in the gardens.

Posing among the garden walls.

The view of Florence from the gardens was great, and it reminded me very much of our view of Cairo from Al-Azhar Park, which was much dingier, dirtier and generally less pleasant.  

The gardens were huge and had a lot of themed areas.  This was me posing in front of a tree tunnel!

Better look at the tree tunnel.  I think it would have been more filled out later in the spring.

This garden wall was also really cool because it was also a series of waterfalls.  We spent more than our fair share of time playing in the water and creating dams along the waterway.

Follow the rest of our journey:

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