Florence I Profumi di Boboli

It would not be my natural choice to spend a Saturday afternoon at a Flower and Scent Show had my curiosity not been aroused by an entry in the Florence newsletter which I receive each month. What on earth do you actually DO at such a show? It certainly didn’t seem my sort of thing at all. That’s why I went.
As I leave my apartment, the first things that greet me as I step into the lane are the smells of rubbish about to be collected plus the sound of very loud organ music from my ‘built in’ chapel. As I walk down the lane, I am assaulted by the smell of coffee on my left then pizza and calzone on my right. Then it’s tripa followed by very strong scents emanating from the LUSH shop. After that, I smell food everywhere. Some establishments even have a chef working outside in the street cooking things that look delicious. I run the gauntlet every day past all these delights.

Today is a fine and warm Saturday; too warm I fear for climbing the heights of the Boboli gardens. The streets are more crowded than usual because of the weather, I suspect. There seem to be more police than usual on the Ponte Vecchio toting their side arms which I cannot imagine would be very useful in these crowds.

There are all sorts of police in Italy. I like the carabinieri. Their uniforms are impeccable and they sit bolt upright if they patrol in cars. If they walk the streets, they look like soldiers with immaculate uniforms which actually fit them. On the other hand all the other types seem to wear uniforms which are several sizes too big for them. They all patrol in pairs.

The traffic police have the worst fitting uniforms of all plus a strange fireman’s helmet which is shaped like a Roman centurian’s headgear.

They are all incredibly friendly. As I walk across the Ponte Vecchio, I see a couple of bicycle police proudly posing with their bikes for a tourist photograph. They even smile when it is asked of them. The traffic police almost seem to apologise when they stop a motorist apparently doing something wrong. But the surprising thing is that there seem to be a large number of them strolling the streets. Sometimes you see a group of four or five municipal and traffic people having a chat. They always seem happy and they are never alone. The Ponte Vecchio is well guarded today with groups of them at either end and posing in the middle.

I walk up the hill towards the Palazzo Pitti and notice with pleasure that there is no line waiting to go in. But no such luck!! I am prevented from entering by a person with an identity card hanging in front of him.

“Do you have a ticket?” I shake my head and he points to a long line about a hundred metres away, “Then you must go there!”

I join the line and, when I arrive at the counter, mutter “sessantacinque” with a slight Florentine accent on the “cinque” (they soften the ‘ch’ with a lot of ‘sh’) and the ticket seller studies my passport. “Dove?” and I say “Boboli” but then ask for a Palazzo Pitti ticket as well. I’ll use that another day. Everything is free for me.

To get to the Boboli Gardens, you pass through a large courtyard. When you come out the other side, you are faced with a large spectacular hillside which you would normally ascend to view the gardens. But I am looking for the show and there is a sign pointing to the right. Unhappily this leads to the bottom of the hill past a palace entrance which looks exactly like the internal courtyard entrance to Buckingham Palace. The design enables horse drawn vehicles to park under cover whilst the passengers climb aboard.

The long downhill path leads to the ‘Pompei’ building but I stop just short of it at the bottom of the hill. On my right is a building that looks a little like an orangery with about five small stalls in front of it. This is the show! The first stall sells plants which will yield nice smells. Another sells essences in bottles and little bags full of smelly stuff for your drawers.

Inside looks a little better. There are about seven more stalls in there. I try a few of the samples but stop at the largest stall which has an enormous range of bottles which you open to smell. To me, most of the bottles contain very ordinary scents. I smell green tea. Yes, that’s what the green tea I have at home (and never drink nowadays) smells like. Then there are all sorts of spices that I have at home. I cannot see the point of these. I even try the ‘gunpowder’ scent which has a faint odour of cordite which I do recognise.

While I am smelling my favourite tea, an Italian sees me in a state of extreme pleasure. “What’s that?”, he asks. I reply, ” Prosciutto. Try it” He tries it and agrees, “Yes!!! Nice!!” I rejoice in the fact that my nose is better than at least one person in this world. On the other hand, it is an easy mistake as this tea is Lapsang Suchong. But I still don’t see the point of buying this here when I can get it in a supermarket.

However, what I did learn was that many of the ordinary substances with which we deal day by day in the kitchen or garden have delicious scents which we ought to value more, except perhaps the ‘gunpowder’.

After smelling my way around the inside, I venture once again to the outside stalls I have not as yet visited. At the first stall on my left, a French family is busily tasting all thirty of the mustards on sale there. The daughter is busily going through all of them one by one. I assume that, because these are the only edible samples around, she is making the best of a poor situation. Then the lady in charge of the stall says to me, “How about some chutney then? Try the mango!!”

I feel chutney is a very English thing. We use common or garden chutney to mask the taste of cheap plastic cheese. But mango chutney is something else again. You don’t have to reserve it for indian dishes. It’s delicious!! So I try it. It’s yummy!!

But, I remind myself, I am here for the smells. The young couple running this stall are here from their farm near Dignes Les Bains in Haute Provence. He is Florentine and is delighted to hear me utter the few words I know in dialect. She is French and they communicate in English despite his efforts at learning French. This show is a trip home for him and a tax loss for the business, I assume. They give me a map and point out where they live. It turns out that I have almost driven past their farm on my way north from Nice. The country in Haute Provence is more hilly than Tuscany but they seem very content with their life together.

After trying all their chutneys, I smell all their soaps and buy a couple of bars of ‘Verveine Citron’. They are delighted.

The people on the next stall are far more superior in their attitude. In fact they have just bought the business. It’s called ‘Alighiero Campostrini’ established in 1894. I ask them if they have a shop in Florence or anywhere else for that matter. They say no.

Just to be annoying, I say, “Then LUSH is the only soap or fragrance shop in Florence!” Their answer is a little curt. “They are for young people!” I feel truly admonished and smell all their soaps again. I notice the soaps have the appellation ‘La Florentina’ and they are handmade in Florence using antique bronze moulds.

Gosh! How can I resist that? I simply choose the soap which smells the most pleasant. This time my bar of soap is placed in the sort of impressive bag that is essential for a business operating in Florence.

The question you ask yourself here is why we buy commercial soaps when, for little more, we can get these beautiful soaps handmade in bronze moulds? I must admit that LUSH soaps cost more than four times the price of normal supermarket soaps but even they last about ten times as long. My present lump looks as though it;s going to last for ever so I’ll have a more accurate figure in a year’s time.

But I must declare myself here. For many years I was the recipient of a Leverhulme Lectureship. Lord Murray read all my reports and even registered his delight at certain things I was doing. Even to this day, I always buy Lever soap and detergents in the supermarket but not only for that reason. Lever Soap was one of the Victorian firms who took care of their workers. You can visit the village built specially for them called Port Sunlight. You get a free bar of the original ‘Sunlight Soap’ if you do!!! They even have some houses available as vacation rentals. Their website is at http://www.portsunlightvillage.com/ for any solotravellers visiting England. (I never forget my benefactors!!)

Having done my duty, I venture even further down the hill to the ‘Pompei House’. This is supposed to recreate the atmosphere of Pompei but I found it a rather disnal place without the colour of the original. I doubt whether it is normally worth the trip downhill on a hot day like this Saturday.

Boboli Gardens are on a hillside overlooking Florence. There are water troughs for horses everywhere and the huge piece of stone which amused me most was directly in front of the palace main building. It was an enormous water trough exactly like those scattered around the gardens but it could only be used by a horse more than about twelve feet high or thereabouts! I’m sure my interpretation is wrong as there are those Greek Gods and their steeds to consider?

Obviously I had to walk up to the top of the gardens. Although I am rather ‘museumed out’ I did take a look at some of the beautiful porcelain in the museum positioned in a building on the top piazza. I must admit that the tiny models, statues and busts did fascinate me after seeing so many of them in the Bargello. The wonderful view from this top level stretches further West than the classic view from the Piazza Michelangelo but it does not directly face the Duomo.

The gardens are more natural than many other gardens. The ornaments are not overbearing. It’s the greenery of the trees and shrubs that dominate the landscape. And the landscaping seems minimal compared to Capability Brown. In my smelling mode I noticed hundreds of young citrus trees whose leaves smelled ready for the kitchen. So it was good to see that the gardens are being maintained in a creative way.

I now have a huge arsenal of soap! So immediately after I return to my apartment, I repair to the shower where I enjoy my free sample ‘Happy Hippy’ shower gel from LUSH. The apartment fills with an incredibly strong odour of citrus and I am soon an extremely happy hippy eating salad, cheese and my sotto costo wine from the super mercato. What more could a man want!!!