boboli gardens

Today I was solo at the Boboli Gardens. Absolutely beautiful. I started out with chatting with Liana online, as she was getting back from a party...She looked great in her dress...then I moved on to coffee around the corner, then the Boboli entrance at Porta Romana. No crowds, no metal detectors. My ten euro ticket got me an entrance to Boboli, Bardini, and two exhibits at the Palazzo Pitti (Pitti Palace). There was a light rain for the first hour, which accentuated the lush, green environs. As you can see from the photos below, everywhere I turned, there was art, or nature as art. I felt like asking this lady's permission before shooting her... Pitti is in the distance, past that is the Centro of Florence.

Here I felt like the episode of the 6 Million Dollar man when he meets bigfoot; he has to go through the tunnel...

That water is green.

Not a statue, this is an actual bird.

This dude is powering out of the water...I would too, if it were this green...
Not a lot of tourists in the garden at this hour. I think the weather scared them into Pitti. Once it started warming up/not raining, more people came out. By that time, I had moved into Pitti Palace to see the Galleria del Costume, period dress exhibits from hundreds of years back to the present. The center-piece was a button exhibit. At one time, buttons were outlawed by the powers (think church) because they were so extravagant and provocative.