Snow Apocalypse

It's been a slow week. Nothing much happening, but I apologize for not posting sooner. The 3-4 inches of snow we had last week shut down the city until this Wednesday when the Mayor of Viterbo finally allowed schools to reopen. It was fun watching the Viterbese wander the streets in awe of all the snow, dressed in their ski suits. But by the time it was over I was really ready to get back to work. We had two good days of classes and then yesterday, lightning struck for the third time. The first storm was a typical one, the next storm was the storm of a generation, yesterday was the storm of a lifetime. We got 12-14 inches across slightly less than 24 hours. The city is at a complete standstill and probably will be for a week or more. Where before people were amused and happy, now the look is one of shock. The army was called out to help dig out from the last one. How can you go up from there? It isn't as though Italy doesn't get snow. They hosted the WINTER olympics in 2006. It is just that this part of the country seldom sees much in the way of winter. People have been living in Viterbo for several thousand years, so to say that this has never happened before is probably far fetched.

I'm not terribly impressed by a foot of snow. Remember, last year at this time we had just finished up a 5 week run in Springfield which saw 5+ feet of snow. However, I took a walk around this morning and took some pictures to record the event. Those of you who have been regularly following our posts can compare with what you saw before. The few of you who have visited can compare the pictures to your memories.

The view of the garden area behind us from the kitchen window.

A palmetto. Remember, while it may not be tropical, palm trees do grow here and not just potted palms you bring in every fall.

Via Vetulonia looking in from the main road, Via Garibaldi. There is a person almost in the middle of the picture. The white blobs next to him are cars, illegally parked on our street.

Fontana Grande. It hasn't been working for months now, but the other fountains in town are all frozen over.

An interesting side note. While walking I saw a city garbage truck turn off the semi-passable main road into a side street. It got stuck about 20 meters down the road, of course, and ended up backing out. While doing so, it backed into a parked car, pulled forward, backed into the same car again, then drove away without a moment of hesitation. Hence my decision to check on our car, parked in the lot outside the walls near Porta Romana.

Portions of the walls are lit at night. Below is one of those lights which kept clear a hole through the snow as it fell.

Porta della Verita.

Via Vetulonia, looking the other direction. The high wall further up the street is the wall you can see from our bedroom window. Keep in mind, this is a fairly well traveled road. There is a whole maze of one-way streets which ultimately empty into our street and are directed out of the city. This is not a good sign that traffic will be flowing smoothly anytime soon.

I can't imagine the Italians having school for at least a week, especially with a few more centimeters forecast for the middle of the week. All of that would be wonderful except that the school is supposed to be traveling for a 10-day trip to Sicily beginning on Monday. Right now it would appear that trip, at least the beginning date, is in some doubt.