Florence Slow Tour: The Medici Villa di Castello

We travel with Syusy Blady through Tuscany in a camper van on a Slow Tour among the Medici Villas, a UNESCO World Heritage site. She travels aboard a van Ecovip 645 Laika and immediately reaches Hu Firenze Camping in Town, a very convenient facility located just outside the city, where she can park the camper and continue towards the center on a bike.

But as we know, the center of Florence is always crowded with tourists, so why not escape to the surrounding countryside to enjoy the picturesque Tuscan landscape and visit the Medici residences? In this episode, Syusy takes us to the Medici Villa of Castello, which now houses the headquarters of the Accademia della Crusca (i.e. Language regulator of Italian).

The villa has a rich history and a magnificent Italian-style garden with the cave of animals and the Fountain of Hercules and Antaeus. Nature and architecture blend together, conveying messages, even political ones, through allegories. The entire villa can be considered an allegory! What does that mean exactly?