Valdarno - 4 Things to Know Before Visiting

The Boboli Gardens is a historic park in the city of Florence. Born as the Grand Ducal garden of Palazzo Pitti, it is also connected to the Forte di Belvedere, a military outpost for the safety of the sovereign and his family. The garden, which welcomes over 800,000 visitors every year, is one of the most important examples of an Italian garden in the world and is a real open-air museum, for its architectural-landscape setting and for the collection of sculptures.

This beautiful Fountain of Neptune was located Right in the center of Florence's Piazza della Signoria, just under the Palazzo Vecchio. The fountain was commissioned to built in honor of the marriage of the second Grand Duke of Tuscany Francesco I De’ Medici to the Grand Duchess Johanna of Austria. The Fountain of Neptune in Florence represents several stories from both Greek and Roman mythology. It was one of the main attractions in this area.

The Forte Belvedere, a common name of the Santa Maria fortress in San Giorgio del Belvedere, is one of two fortresses of Florence, as well as a famous scenic spot and valuable architectural work of the city. Located at the highest point of the Boboli hill, it can be accessed from the San Giorgio coast, via Belvedere or via San Leonardo. Today the fort hosts summertime art exhibitions, which are well worth a peek if only to revel in the sweeping city panorama that can be had from the fort.

Villa Bardini, formerly Villa Manadora, is located on the San Giorgio 2 coast in Florence. Today it is an exhibition center that hosts temporary exhibitions, the Capucci Museum and the Annigoni Museum. The garden of the villa is the spectacular Bardini garden, which can now be visited separately with the same ticket as the Boboli Gardens. Furthermore, there is the Bardinicontemporanea space always open with free admission, which offers exhibitions of contemporary art and visual art in combinatio

The abbey basilica of San Miniato is located in one of the highest places in the city of Florence and is one of the best examples of Florentine Romanesque. It has the dignity of a minor basilica. There are five abbeys in Florence and its surroundings: Badia Fiesolana to the north, Badia a Settimo to the west, San Miniato abbey to the south, Badia a Ripoli to the east, and Badia Fiorentina in the center. It has been described as one of the finest Romanesque structures in Tuscany.

La Specola' houses a large zoological collection, the largest collection in the world of eighteenth-century anatomical waxes, the unique collection of the Sicilian coroplast Gaetano Giulio Zumbo, the Salone degli Skeletri . Furthermore, the “ Mineraliter. Stones admirable between Medici and Nature ”proposes an extraordinary selection of worked stones that belonged to the Medici family, flanked by an exhibition of aesthetic minerals from Italy and all over the world.