Boboli Gardens

I finally made it to Boboli Gardens behind the Pitti Palace. It was a beautiful day and what better way to spend a day like that than to go to a garden? Here's a link to a virtual tour of the gardens, if that's what floats your boat..

The only even remotely un-beautiful part of this little excursion were the mosquitoes. It's been cold for about a week, I haven't gotten any bites for three weeks and I thought I was in the clear.

WRONG.

I forgot that it was warm yesterday. I also didn't take into account that it'd been raining so Boboli was covered in patches of standing, stagnant water. Guess who likes to make babies in water very much like the stuff I've just described? Yes, mosquitoes. I now have four bites that became enormous in ten minutes tops. I couldn't figure out why my hand was itchy until these bites just appeared out of no where and started to take over my hand... sort of like those little sponge animals you drop in water and watch grow into slightly larger sponge animals. I've learned my lesson for sure now, those bug wipes mummy sent me with no live in my purse at all times.

I wish I could be all naive and get away with it.

This is a view of the backside of the Palace and part of Florence from the gardens.
I think this is the fountain (another Neptune) that the Florentine's call "The Fountain of the Fork" for Neptune's trident. I think. It's either this one or the one further down.


You've got to have little monkey statues in a garden. It's just a given.
The countryside behind the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens towards the south.
Part of the garden wall.
I think these trees look like fingers. Oh, and this is totally where I was eaten alive. But hey, mosquitoes have to live too.... or not.

This was one in a series of little gargoyles that were connected by a trough. When it rains the water would pour through there mouths and down these little grooves to end in a little basin. Some of them were melted and distorted from what I'm assuming is some sort of deadly air/rain pollution that we're responsible for. Thanks guys, I love melty statues.
Keep on truckin'

Doin' some Kah-ray-TAY!

Topless style... I like the way this sculptor thinks.

Could you imagine walking along and then seeing water pour out of this crazy-man's face?
The correct answer? Yes.. and it will be awesome.

Rocks!
Specifically gravel but who am I to be all specific?

These fish at the base of statues around the "natural" lake reminded me of Doctor Finklestein from The Nightmare Before Christmas movie.... just a little.
I decided that I didn't have nearly enough pigeons on this blog. Or at least I wasn't being very accurate in the ratio of statues and pigeons in Florence. Hopefully this is one step closer to showing the sheer number of winged-rats that are constantly eating something unidentifiable off of the street.
Neptune!
Florentines and Europeans in general really seem to like Neptune, but then that's only 'cause he's Neptune... I mean come on he's the god of horsey/water/ocean-ie things, that's got to charm the Renaissance ladies.


Shoes! And Roots!
NICE.
From behind you think to yourself... "Ahhhh another nudy statue... that's cool." But then you work your way around the front out of sheer curiosity and you see...
.... that she's GOT NO HAND! It's not simply melted off... it looks more like it was sculpted so that it's been chopped off and her bone's just hanging out saying "Hey fellas... how's the day?" all calm and everything. I think this was my favorite.
Adam and Eve... enjoying a nice day of misery and repentance.
But they're also doing so with matching stylish leaf underpants. Can't beat that God... maybe you should forgive them because their coolness factor is so high, in fact it's biblical!
Now this guy rocks. He's riding some sort of possessed eagle-dog that's about two sizes too small for him. I hope he was able to do whatever it is he set out to do with his little buddy there.