Today is Festa dei lavoratori (Labor Day) in Italy. The city seemed so quiet this morning when I woke up. There were no buses and hardly any cars outside in the street. Almost every shop on my street was closed even though a few restaurants and bars were open. It wasn't until I walked out to Santa Croce that crowds of people seemed to just appear. Because most of the museums were closed today for the festa (holiday), the churches and gardens were busier than usual.
This afternoon, I walked up Costa San Giorgio with Karen. We were planning on visiting the Giardino Baldini, but we would have had to go to Boboli to buy tickets because they aren't selling them at the entrance. We walked up the Costa San Giorgio a bit further and then turned down via di Belvedere to go to San Niccolò. We sat out on the terrace at Fuori Porta to have a light snack and drinks.
I stopped on via di Belvedere to take a picture of San Miniato, which is my favorite church. I haven't seen it from this angle in a long time and couldn't not take a picture of it.
As we were walking back toward Santa Croce, it began to rain. We stopped off at Vivoli to get a gelato (ice cream). Luckily the rain subsided, and I was able to walk home without getting wet. It did rain earlier this afternoon as well, and we had to postpone our little excursion by an hour.
I did learn by reading in Il Firenze that today's holiday was originally American even though we don't recognize it on this day. I found out that it was on this date in 1886 that the 8 hour weekday was obtained.
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