Well today I decided to do a hybrid. I stayed in the city but went to several nice relaxing parks to get away from the city noise and hub bub. There’s an area in the city called Palermo. It was named after the Italian city in Sicily where lots of people emigrated from. They have four really nice parks clustered close together… or that’s what the map shows… but my feet will tell you differently! Those maps are deceiving.
I also used the bus system today. Now that was a trip! I had been spoiled so far either walking or being picked up at my hotel so I thought, let’s give this crazy bus system a try. Anytime I’m in a big foreign city, I like to use the mass transit to get around and be “with the people”. But sometimes some of those people don’t share the same personal hygiene regimen that we do… and remember, it’s summer here and was about 85 today. Enough said! Lol.
But it really worked out fine. Their bus system can get you anywhere in the city and it only costs about 30 cents per ride! I started at the Botanical Garden. It opened in 1898 and has over 3,000 tree and plant species. I even saw what the Yerba Mate plant looks like that makes their Mate drink. It also had this really cool antique iron and glass greenhouse that was originally shown at the 1900 Paris Exhibition (World’s Fair). Very cool.
I then walked to the Japanese Garden. It opened in 1967 and had lots of ponds everywhere with Koi fish in them, pretty bridges and walkways, and this nice calm Japanese music playing throughout. They had this cool set up (I attached a picture below) where people could write messages or inspirational quotes to leave for others to read. I just wrote MAGA on mine to see if they’d get it. Lol. JUST TEASING!
I then walked over to the Rose Garden which was this gorgeous area with over 18,000 roses in bloom. There were nice pathways to walk around and plenty of benches to “stop and smell the roses”! I think it dropped my blood pressure about 100 points!
While my blood pressure was lower, my feet were starting to bark at me. So I found a place to rent a bike and cruised around the last park that I went to which was called Parque 3 de Febrero. Also known as Bosques of Palermo, it is a huge park with lots of small lakes with paddle boats on them and pretty gazebos. Given that the weather was perfect and it was a weekend, there were tons of people everywhere. Families were picnicking, friends were playing futbol (soccer), babies were being pushed in strollers and there were lots of joggers and cyclists.
This area was originally the private retreat of the 19th century dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas and became public parkland only after his fall from power on February 3, 1852 (hence the park name!). The landscape architect who designed it used London’s Hyde Park and Paris’ Bois de Boulogne as inspiration for his work.
My last place I visited for the day was the Hipodromo de Palermo (horse race track). There were no races today but the building is gorgeous and you can tell there’s a lot of money thrown around here. They even had a pretty big casino inside but I decided not to throw my own money away. After all that, and being somewhat far away from my hotel, I had to take two buses to get back. But it all worked out fine.
Hope everyone had a great weekend! Happy International Woman’s Day today to all you great women out there!
The Wandering Italian 