Bardini Gardens and symphony

(This is part of our series of posts from our six-week Road Scholar Independent Living and Learning in Florence trip to Italy in Spring 2025. We have an index to all the posts from that trip here.)

With just three days remaining in our Road Scholar experience, we were trying to cram in a few more experiences that we’d missed so far, including a recommended restaurant and a walk through the Giardino Bardini. Then in the evening, our group all got dressed up to attend a symphony performed by the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in the city’s beautiful modern concert hall.

Cheryl’s language class teacher Serena had recommended a gluten-free restaurant, Sgrano, so we met our Road Scholar classmates Lori and Georgia there for lunch after school. (It was their last day of class, but David still had class on Friday.) Cheryl and Lori had raved about “coccoli” (“cuddles” in Italian), a typical Tuscan street food that they had tried during their tour of Mercato Sant’Ambrogio, so I had to try it myself. Coccoli is fried dough, a bit like a Mexican sopapilla but not hollow inside and with a denser texture that reminded me of Brazilian cheese puffs. I ordered it at Sgrano with prosciutto crudo and stracchino cream cheese, which you stuffed together into the fried bread. Delicious!

Scooters and motorcycles are ubiquitous in Florence, and are perfectly suited to the narrow streets. Even the Italian post office uses them to deliver the mail.

After lunch, we walked back to our apartment through the Giardino Bardini (Bardini Gardens). The 700-year-old gardens occupy a steep, panoramic hillside overlooking Florence, between Borgo San Niccolò near our language school and, at the top of the hill, Costa San Giorgio (our street). We had seen the top portion of the gardens earlier in our stay, because the entrance was just a few doors up the street from our apartment, but we hadn’t seen the lower section–so on this hot and sticky day, we walked uphill from the bottom to the top.

This is the Baroque staircase in the Italian Garden section.

Another view of the formal Italian Garden section of the Giardino Bardini, with the Baroque staircase in the middle.

Fragrant roses in bloom along the paths in Giardino Bardini.

There are many different possible routes to take up the hill in Giardino Bardini, which is crisscrossed by paths. (Cheryl took this one of me walking up the path.)

As we ascended on the steep path, we were rewarded with this view the Basilica di Santa Croce and the Centro Storico, framed by colorful flowers.

Walking inside the wisteria pergola in Giardino Bardini. It must be quite spectacular when the trees are in bloom.

Statuary in Giardino Bardini below the La Loggetta restaurant (where we had lunch earlier in our stay), framing the city of Florence below.

In the evening, our Road Scholar group met up at Florence’s beautiful modern opera and concert hall, the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, for a symphony performance. (This is not my photo, but one I cribbed from the web.)

Sculptures in the ultra-contemporary building pay homage to the city’s Roman and Renaissance heritage.

The performance featured the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, conducted by Thomas Guggeis (Zubin Mehta is the musical director, but wasn’t there this evening). The orchestra performed two symphonies: Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony No. 41 in C major and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major.

We got dressed up for the performance!

Brenda, one of our Road Scholar group leaders who is also on the faculty at the ABC Machiavelli language school, accompanied us to the concert, along with Francesca, our program director.

The orchestra after performing Mozart’s “Jupiter” symphony. The longest and last symphony that Mozart composed (in 1788), it is regarded by many critics as among the greatest symphonies in classical music, and we both enjoyed it more than Prokofiev’s more discordant work from 1944. The acoustics in the opera hall were near-perfect.