We crossed the Arno River to the San Niccolò neighbourhood which is the eastern area of Oltrarno. Started at Villa Bardini, more specifically, the garden. The entrance was hard to find because of construction next door.

Walking around the garden was a good workout and necessary because the toilette were at the entrance building at the bottom of the hill.

Our group has a new student who signed up for one day. Somehow she got lost in the trees to the right of the below photo.

The views at the top:

I worked on a portion of it:

The place has had many owners but the last, Stefano Bardini, an antiques dealer and collector, died in 1922 without heirs. He left the place to the city of Florence. It was in great need of repair. There is also a museum Bardini nearby which was his residence.

In the afternoon, we moved a little further east to the Giardino delle Rose (Garden of the Roses) which I visited two Saturdays ago.

The garden was built as part of the 19th century renovation of the south bank of the Arno River. The architect Poggi also designed Piazzale Michelangelo as part of the same project.

The garden provides different views of the Duomo.

I worked on this one:

I used my own sketchbook this time and my own paints and paintbrush. In four hours, I didn’t finish my first sketch.

I worked faster and finished, or at least, decided I had enough after three hours working on my second. The weather was supposed to be cloudy but as the above photos show, it was sunny and hot. It got to 28 in the midafternoon. Sitting on your butt in the heat focussing on sketching is more exhausting than you would think.

Last week was a lot of Donatello. The past two days have been a Brunelleschi dome theme for me. Four Duomo views in two days. One of the other students drew a rose in the rose garden.

I definitely need to improve my painting technique.

These art classes have interrupted my gelato hunting, in fact, gelato eating. On the way back to the apartamento, my feet were not up for another walk to find gelato but I had to pass by La Carraia so I stopped for a fiordilatte and espresso gelato.