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 | Snow came on Friday, rather than Saturday, and began in the morning with wind that stripped the leaves from the trees, followed by close to a foot of drifting snow in just a couple of hours, and at one point I heard thunder overhead. Then it tapered off, some, but continued until night.
Central Italy isn't set up for this sort of thing, and it didn't take long for trucks to jacknife on the A-1 motorway, stopping all north-south traffic (and stranding thousands who spent the night in their cars), while in Florence people without snow tires or chains either spun out or got stock and in either case simply abandoned their cars where they happened to be.
The upshot of all this was wife E staying in Florence with her parents, while son R, who was on a school trip, got back to the school after 1 AM and slept there, and Daughter C and I hosted one of her classmates whose parents were unable to get home.
Saturday was beautifully white, with cars still where they had been abandoned, and when we drove home late in the afternoon they were still there. And there again today, together with a tremendous amount of slush, because today it began to rain, and both Florence and the township of Bagno a Ripoli seem to have decided to let the rain melt the snow rather than plow. If I didn't have a SUV with 4-wheel drive I wouldn't have made it home tonight.
Bottom line: If you're in Florence and hear that it's expected to snow, enjoy it, because it is pretty, but don't plan on going anywhere for several days after the last flake -- neither the airports nor the rail service are back to normal either. | |
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