Florence saved it's best 24-hours until the end. It started last night with a wonderful, fat dinner at one of those restaurants Frommers calls "worth a splurge". I was the guest of Roberto, my new Florentine friend, and, since he knew the owner well, he'd even inveighled him to into making me a caesar salad! While I can't honestly say it tasted quite like any other caesar salad I've ever had, it was nevertheless delicious, along with everything else in our four courses plus of Italian culinary delights.

Roberto and I talked in pidgin-anglo italian, although he seemed to understand my french better than my english. Late in our meal, when we were tucking into a souffle, another table in our section became amply filled by a government minister and his entourage. I couldn't tell which of them was the minister, nor whether he was the Minister of Defence or of Lavatories, but I could take a guess that he was the inordinately self- satisfied guy sitting on one end who kept staring rudely at me with a knowing smile.

All that food and wine sent me to bed extremely tired, and I slept until ten this morning. I spent a lazy morning sitting in the window, which I'd finally figured out how to open, catching up with email and choosing some photos to send to my parents.

Catching up with email.

After lunch, I picked up my reserved ticket for the Palazzo Pitti, which is best described as a kind of Renaissance theme park - errm, how about calling it Great Medici World? One amusing thing that happened as I picked up my tickets - two young Americans called me Signor, and made hand gestures to ask me to take their photo. First time I've been mistaken for an Italian :)

This afternoon could best be described as a few hours of great beauty uncluttered by knowledge. First, the gorgeous blue skies with snowy white clouds; then one of the most beautiful parks I've ever experienced; and finally monumental rooms of sumptuous beauty in the Palazzo itself, each room more beautiful than the last. I allowed myself to experience it all with no written guide, map or audio-tape, just letting the whole flood my senses, rather than focusing on single objects.

First the park. I have to say that Frommers is a little disappointing in its descriptions. I had no idea, based on its entry for the Boboli Gardens (attached to the Pitti Palace), that the park would be so perfect, or so beautifully peaceful. It's possible to find spots where all you can hear are woodland birds calling all around you - the very idea of Summer. The place must have five hundred miles of secluded paths, at one estimate (mine :), and thousands of statues.

In the Boboli Gardens

A fountain against a perfect sky

The park is maintained at exactly the right point between formal, metriculous beauty and natural, slightly crumbling decadence. There are magnificent sight-lines framed by the curly blue sky and the purple Appenines on the horizon. Florence obviously puts all of its gardening resources here. The only catch is that you have to pay to enter, and you have to line up to pay.

More of that perfect sky, with San Miniato in the distant background

The view of Florence from the Kaffeehaus in the park

Perfect weather for sunbathing ...

Feeling relaxed and happy, I wandered back down the gardens to the Palazzo itself, which houses most of the museums. Really, the only one I'd decided upon seeing was the Appartamenti Monumentali - perhaps the most aptly named museum in the World! Or perhaps you could also call it "The Museum that Time Forgot" - I strolled in a kind of daze through these stunningly beautiful, ornate rooms. For the first set of rooms, there were no other visitors to be seen. In fact, if it hadn't been for the bored security guards chattering excitedly with each other, I'd have been completely alone. The early rooms are curiously arranged. Rooms filled with chairs, for example, or partly obscured by shadow and colossal free-standing paintings in the middle of the room - it was almost as if the Medicis had just moved out leaving the larger pieces behind.

A stunning ceiling in the Appartamenti Monumentali

In the later rooms, there was almost more beauty than the eye could take in. Gilded, sculpted ceilings painted with voluptuous biblical figures against yellow storm-tossed skies; gigantic, over-the-top chandleers, candlesticks and mirrors; Renaissance paintings filling every wall; large rooms all of one color, like the green room, with its walls of green damask, and chairs and curtains embroidered with the same pattern. And throughout, a hushed silence, with any noise deadened by centuries old layers of damasque, velvet and carpeting. It all made the ostentation of the mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, which I visited last July, seem like so much Martha Stewart.

Another gorgeous ceiling

After an afternoon filled with such overwhelming beauty, I headed back to my hotel in an elevated, dream-like stage of mind. Here ends my Florence trip, more or less, but a great way to end. Tonight, packing, and watching the Italy-Belgium soccer game, then tomorrow morning, the train back to Rome and a flight to London, where I'll be based for the next two weeks. See you in London!