Boboli Gardens

Boboli is the Medici back garden and it behaves like a small park rather than a formal parterre: forty-five hectares climbing the hill behind Palazzo Pitti, laid out from 1550 and full of set pieces — the amphitheatre with its Egyptian obelisk, the Viottolone avenue of cypresses running down to the Isolotto pond, terraces, grottoes and long gravel walks between clipped hedges.

For a session the useful thing is variety within a short walk. The amphitheatre gives symmetry and stone; the Viottolone gives a deep green corridor with light coming through the cypresses; the terrace by the Kaffeehaus gives the dome and the city over the rooftops. The upper end towards the Belvedere is the quietest, because most visitors turn back before they reach it.

Entry is ticketed and the garden closes well before sunset for much of the year, which rules out golden hour on the terraces in winter — check the seasonal closing time when booking. The climb is real: gravel, steps and a hundred metres of height from the palace to the top, so two or three chosen areas beat trying to cross the whole thing.