So a 4 hour walk today, with only a rough direction in mind, led us to Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Garden. The last time we looked at going into this garden, they wanted 10euro just to walk through the gate.  When was the last time you paid to walk into a garden?  Not only that, but it’s the off season. Flowers aren’t in bloom. Fountains have been decommissioned in advance of freezing pipes. Seems like a money grab because that reduced fare for kids and seniors isn’t graciously offered to the rest of us off season visitors.

When your touristic audience is now 11 days into a two week stint, you know they’re looking for something to do.  This means we committed to a three day museum pass.  For 18 euro, it better at least provide the opportunity for a few included bathroom breaks since I didn’t see any complimentary mints being handed out by the surly looking guy checking our tickets on the way in.  This isn’t a widespread pass thing that will allow us into just any museum, but a select few locations, and only once.  Quite the racket these Italians have going limiting pictures, confiscating water bottles and insisting on quiet time in churches.  What’s next?  The renting of bowling shoes to tread on ancient floors?

Back to the park…yes, a park with sculptures undated and worn.  Genitalia smashed off the male figures and arms broken off the women, which may just be my opinion, but not a very satisfying way to spend hundreds of years in one place.  One sculpture of man with dog was also disturbingly damaged with both man and beast missing their faces and half of their heads.  Interestingly enough most of the remaining carved features of the statue were well detailed and intact.  Today, such a pieces would likely be considered modern art, but here it just seemed like abuse or lack of maintenance.

The park wasn’t limited to just the eroding detailed sculpture work from centuries past, but also these orbish marble structures placed in tree-shielded areas just out of the way of the main thoroughfares.  It almost seemed to be a treat for anyone willing to divert from the map and follow some of these leaf-covered pathways into grassy clearings.  These stone white blood cells were effectively driving away the hoards of camera-toting garden goers and their smooth, cool surfaces were attracting the select few to stumble upon them.  I’ll call that minor discovery worth the entry for the few minutes of fun we had taking pics.

We stayed for a full two and a half hours, squeezing every possible photo op from the place to make it worth every last cent.  With the sun setting at all of 16:00, we headed for the exits for fear of being trapped amongst headless statues in an unlit park.  The looks on some of the goblins or ghoulish figures solidified in Cararra can be a little unnerving to anyone with a wild imagination.  Maybe a good place to take a kid high on Halloween candy for a moonlight stroll to put a real scare into them.  Might require additional zombie sound effects.

These little galleries aren’t expected to be too exciting though. In addition to our expensive wander through a park preparing for hibernation, we found a porcelain museum to hide from the afternoon sun.  I am confident in saying I have zero interest teacups. Even lacey dinner plates do not fascinate either of us with the questions of “how did they do that?”.  I would even go as far as saying I was even a little repulsed by the dinnerware on display, which minimized the visit to less than five minutes before heading back into the blinding afternoon sun. Mom, make sure those collectibles go to the other siblings, because I sure won’t find the time or space for them.

So tomorrow, we will need to find some entertainment from a silver gallery and maybe the modern art museum.  We have access to some Royal Apartments which I will keep the expectations low on, as well as a costume museum.  Let’s hope there wasn’t a big clown era that the Medici’s went through.