| Erin's Florence Journal #7 4-16-02 Today was Tuesday, the day of the nationwide strike by Italian public workers. This means all public buses, trains, museums, and most government offices were closed, and we had heard there would be a public demonstration as well. Sure enough, the moment we stepped out of the hostel, we could hear the crowd chanting, and as we looked down at the main street of Nazionale, we could see masses of people marching past with red clothing, flags and banners, heading toward the train station, a central square of the city. To avoid this, we headed the other way, having planned out a route to see some of the other parks of the city, and ultimately to get to the Piazzale Michelangelo, where we'd heard there was a spectacular view of the city. But we ran into the crowds in several spots, on all major streets in downtown Florence. They were peaceful and in a good mood though, so we just threaded our way through the crowd and found our first park. The Giardino dei Semplici was closed, as it was attached to the Botanical school of the University in Florence, so we wandered closer to the Arno and found a small, private park which featured some obviously well-loved experiments in bonsai tree-growth. After a relaxing hour there, hidden from the noise and crowds, we made our way across the Ponte Alle Grazie to get to the other side of the Arno, and immediately climbed a VERY steep hill. There we found the impressively preserved San Miniato al Monte, with its grand views of Florence and large, family-oriented cemetary. There were large, elaborately engraved headstones and crypts for several of Florence's older families. Soon, we meandered downhill slightly to our original destination, the Piazzale Michelangelo. It truly does have great views of Florence from above, and we watched as a newlywed Asian couple had their professional photos taken with the city as their backdrop. Around 2:30pm, we noticed the crowd noises from across the river had died down, and went back across to find the strike mostly over, with the only remains being the stream of litter on all the streets. (I must commend the public services here though; the street cleaners were on the job and had the place clean again by the next day!) We headed back to the hostel to work on journals, as I in particular have been finding it difficult to sit down and type every evening. Even as I worked, people in the common room were coming up to admire our technology and chat, so I was constantly interrupted and distracted. I managed to get through about 5 days before the PDA battery died! We headed up to bed early, at 9:30pm, but 2 of our nice roommates came up early too and we ended up talking till 11:30pm. Another long but great day! |
| View from the top of Palazzo Pitti's Boboli Garden |
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| View from San Miniato to the countryside outside Florence |