Day 3, Rainy joy.

It rained most of the night, colder than we expected but I would still rather be cold and rained on in Tuscany than Grand Rapids… I’m just sayin’

We heard what we thought was one odd roll of thunder in the night that turns out may have actually been an earthquake. Nothing much to speak of here in Greve, just a couple of grapefruit sized rocks in the the path up to Nelson’s and Varda’s apartment but north of here took a pretty hard hit. The peninsula is prone to quakes but for us it is yet another first on our 10^th visit.

After a leisurely breakfast and a bunch of doing nothing (it is a vacation…) we pile in to our cars for the hour drive to Lucignano. Alternating spits and pours as we wind through the narrow switchback mountain roads towards the autostrada south.

It’s lunch time a the Autogrill which is an Italian experience all it’s own. Autogrills are truck stop/rest area/restaraunts on Italian frenetic steroids. You can get anything at an Autogrill. This one had a restaurant where you could get a porterhouse steak done to order, rissoto, caprese salad, all pretty good or you could get a vending machine sandwich. It’s chaos of the most perplexing efficiency.

Lucignano is a typical ancient walled hill town with narrow winding stone streets and calf punishing hills so we were most intrigued by the idea of a parade with floats and bands and folk dancers. And we heard that they have an interesting take on their tree trimming as well. Somewhat Seus-ian I thought

We were not disappointed! Again with trumpets and drums!

There was a pony and cart, folk dancers from several regions, flag throwers, little flag throwers, a team of HUGE oxen pulling an ornate wagon and four very respectable flower covered floats depicting regional activities.

The whole show wound it’s way around the inner wall until the beginning of the parade met the end and then they all went around again completely encircling the town. Next weekend they’ll do the whole thing again and after the winning float is announced, they’ll tear them apart and throw the flowers at eachother in a mock battle. Then they’ll argue about who one and who should have one until next year. 

Though it rained pretty much the entire time it didn’t seem to dampen the festivities or detract from the afternoon at all, in fact, it may have added to it, soaking the experience into our memories.

Pizza dinner at a little osteria in Greve and that’s about all we could handle.