I finally had a day to rest. We haven’t had many since we have been here. This morning Jacques worked on the tax returns while I went to the bigger Conad grocery store to find some chocolate bars with lemon and ginger that I had tried at the beginning of our vacation. They only had 2 left so I quickly grabbed them to take home.
Today the Florentians celebrate the new year. From the middle ages until 1750, March 25th was the day they started their calendar year. Since the year 2000 they have a historical procession to mark the occasion.
After a pizza for lunch that was cooked in a wood burning oven, we walked to where the parade was to start. We stopped 3 times to ask for information and no one knew where it started or that there was even one. Finally, a policeman looked it up on his phone for us and showed us where to go. Until about 5 seconds before the parade began people were in the middle of the street with taxis, cars, motor bikes, bicycles and even buses coming through. Just as they started advancing a policewoman told everyone to back up so the parade could go through.
The parade lasted somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes at the most and then everyone dispersed. We had a great view in the front.
For once nobody was smoking which was nice. There are so many smokers in Italy it’s unbelievable and a lot are young. They walk around with their pouch of tobacco and roll up their cigarettes as they go. A few have plastic filters to put on the end, but many do not.
Even if it was one of our shortest step day we still clocked in at over 10 km for the day.
Tonight, is also the day that we have to advance our clocks so we will again be 5 hours ahead of home.
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