Carnevale!

Not to be outdone by either Rio di Janeiro or Mardi Gras in New Orleans or even by their neighbors in Venice or Viareggio on the Tuscan coast, Florence, too, has it’s “carnival” spirit, a spirit which was quite evident yesterday (Sunday) along the banks of the Arno river. (See my photos online)

Even though the day saw some off-and-on rain showers, Susan and I nevertheless decided to brave the elements and in the early afternoon headed for Piazza Ognisanti, located on the north bank of the Arno river.

The parade (“corteo”) consisted of various local ethnic groups and their respective associations, and kicked off at about 2:30 pm. It wended its way toward the Duomo and then end up in the Piazza Signoria, the very heart of Renaissance Florence. The “floats” were in fact large trucks decorated with the colors, flags and banners of the numerous ethnic groups which have settled in Florence: Ivory Coast, Peru, Albania, Greece, Chinese.

The parade was led off by a number of locals (presumably) dressed in Renaissance-era Florentine costumes. It was controlled chaos, in typical Italian style: Susan and I found ourselves, like a few others, walking alongside the “floats” as they began their movement forward and we are continually amazed at how relaxed the whole day was, given the large crowds.

Apparently one of the ideas behind this whole affair was to get kids out with their families – and indeed there were many kids and parents (and grandparents) fully decked out in a wild variety of costumes, witches (“streghe”), Disney characters, mice (“topi”) and even the little Zorro we saw had a moustache and goatee neatly drawn on his face. And there were even a couple of Goths – or Vandals we couldn’t tell which – who were fully decked out along with their mom and baby brother -- or sister!

We spent the better part of the afternoon watching the parade from various spots, along the parade route and enjoyed the variety of ethnic music, singing and dancing by many of the participants. It was really great fun.

After we had pretty seen all of the “floats” we took a break and headed over to Paszkowski’s for a caffe. (The café is located right on the Piazza della Repubblica and so it was right next to the parade route which crossed through the piazza.) We also had the foresight to bring our umbrellas (“ombrelli”) with us because we got hit a couple of times with rain showers.


But those too passed and after watching some of the ceremonies on the Piazza Signoria, where all the “floats” had ended up, we headed back to the apartment for an evening at home: dinner followed by Columbo! That’s right we finally broke down and bout a little DVD player here and then went out and bought the first season of Columbo; a nice way to spend a chilly, rainy evening. And we were completely taken by surprise when the first episode finished and we saw that the writer was Steven Bochco and the director was Steven Spielberg!

And for dessert we finished off an apple/pastry cream tart which Susan had made the night before. This particular tart was the result of something novel she had learned in class: cooked pastry cream, which was then baked (along with the apples). And man oh man was this good or what!!? It was delicious Saturday night, Sunday morning and Sunday night!

We hope you are all well, warm and eager to enjoy life! As always,

Wish you were here,

Steve