Today is a holiday in Florence. It is celebrating itself. Ellen and I just witnessed what must be the world’s biggest longest and loudest fireworks display. I am not kidding. We have video we will post later that we started a while after the display started thinking we would catch the crescendo. Noooooo, we thought the fireworks had ended twice, but Nooooooo. Toward the end we were both laughing at how extensive the display was.
In the US, the pyrotechnic guys like to show one explosion at a time (usually) so it’s boom ahhhhh, boom ahhhhhh. In this case each “boom” was from eight to twenty individual large booms (individual rockets) combined into a frame. And boy were there frames. Probably one hundred displays of an average of say ten fireworks each. The crescendo was unbelievable, the third time that is. The other two were amazing in their own right.
Amazing. Does Florence know how to host a fireworks display? QED.
We walked through a few Piazzas on the way to the Duomo then headed back to a local market for some shopping ahead of the celebration. We took bread, cheese, proscuitto, sopressata, arugula, fruit, and wine (sangiovese of course) back home with us. We forgot to weigh the fruit ahead of the checkout counter and I did the walk of shame back to the scales to have the price printed for the melon, oranges, banana, carrots, and tomatos, then did the walk of shame back past the checkout line. Not something I want to repeat.
we had dinner in knowing the fireworks were coming, but thought they would be over the river and out of sight. They were on the hilltop right outside our bedroom & living room windows: “right there”.
Alessandra said this was special and not to be missed. The local clubs are full of revelers and the banks of the Arno were teeming with people as we walked home. We did get lost walking home, but found our way without much difficulty.
One clearly American girl said, “I need to get drunk” as she passed us. The two fellows ahead of us remarked and laughed.
Settling in to Florence quite nicely.
Ron