Ice age: Florence Edition

Ciao a tutti!

This is a few weeks late, but remember that picture in my first post of Piazza della Signoria with all the hail?  That was apparently a very rare occurrence and thus a very big deal here in Florence, and I wanted to share some pictures with you all from that day.

L'era glaciale - "ice age" in Italian.  Photo from teladoiofirenze.it

Yes, all that white stuff on the ground is ICE!  Here's how it happened....

It was a beautiful sunny day in Florence and we had just gone back into class after our so-called pausa caffè (coffee break).  It was just us and our professor because the program directors had left to run an errand.  We opened the window because it was warm in the classroom and were just starting to take notes on some of the finer points of Italian grammar when suddenly, it became very dark.  We thought nothing of it and continued working because we had a lot of material to cover but within a few minutes we were interrupted by a gust of wind which came swirling through the classroom and the sound of pelting rain.  Chiudere le finestre! Close the windows!  But as we got up and closed all the Sede's windows it became clear that this was not just your typical rainstorm.  I'm from Florida so I know storms, but I have never seen anything like this before.  Within minutes, it was raining so much that you couldn't see a single thing and hail was beating against the window so hard we were afraid it might break the glass.  The wind was very strong and blowing from all directions and from the window I could just barely make out a pigeon trying to fly out of the storm.  Needless to say, all attempts at learning grammar ceased and we just stood at the window, watching the storm.  Even though we closed the windows in time, quite a bit of water managed to leak inside and we had to soak it up with towels.  The whole thing lasted only about 20 minutes and when we could finally see out again, we were surprised to see how much the piazza had changed.

This was a few minutes after the storm, when people caught outside ventured out into the piazza again, but immediately after the storm, the piazza was deserted.  All the umbrellas over the kiosks in the piazza were completely destroyed by the wind.

The hail that remained on the window sill

Confused tourists congregating outside of an overpriced gelato shop

We finished class and then I abandoned my plans of further exploring the town that afternoon and headed home.  Piazza della Signoria had very little ice and hail compared to what I saw on my way home, which was more like the picture at the beginning of the post.  Unfortunately though I do not have pictures because I was wearing sandals and a maxi skirt and was too busy trying to make sure I did not get completely soaked.  The temperature had also dropped significantly so I tried to hurry as fast as I could.  When I got to my bus stop in San Marco however, I had time to take a picture of the fallen trees and branches along with all the other tourists and locals.  If you want to see more pictures of le grandine (hail), there is a slide show here: Bomba d'acqua e grandinata (lit: water bomb and hail storm)  The website is in Italian but just scroll down to the slideshow :)

Fallen trees and branches in Piazza San Marco

This was a pretty amazing storm.  Water and ice found their way into almost every part of the city.  I have a friend who owns a store here in Florence and the door was pushed open by the hail and it covered almost the entire floor!  Even when I got home I found my host mom cleaning up the water that leaked in from the windows.  Thankfully though, we haven't had such weather since that day.  Sometimes it rains but for the most part it is sunny and a very pleasant 80 degrees Fahrenheit. :)

A typical day in Florence.  (And yes, that is someone rowing on the Arno!)