Easter in Florence

This is a picture of the cart and the oxen that pulled it.Because it is such a tourist attraction,Italians included,it was packed,meaning that it was hard to get good pictures or films e.t.c!

Towards the end this is practically all you can see!

These are flag throwers (guess what they do!) I think some of them represent Florence's major families.

This is the cart.Looks great doesn't it!

Easter in Florence is a massive thing.It's been a tradition for hundreds of years to make a cart out of wood and cover it in fireworks, make a wooden dove go down a wire and make the explosives go off.The noise of the fireworks going off is really loud,my little sister covered her ears and cried it was that loud!The fireworks don't all go off at the same time ,they go off at different times as they are on separate tiers.
The whole event is called 'scoppio del carro' which means blowing up of the cart,which ,technically it is!
As a sort of welcome for the cart and it's ceremonial guard, people in tight tights ran around carrying enormous flags and skillfully throwing them up in the air.It was really cool,apart from the tights that is!

Anyone whose read the Discworld books will agree with me on this,this really is Sam Vimes,Young Sam and the patrician!


The cart was pulled by four ENORMOUS white oxen with palm leaves on their heads along with flowers.

while we were waiting for the cart to get to where we were, we went into a cafe.In the back of this cafe were paintings of cats and dogs dressed up as 'aristodogs and noblecats'




These are/were just a few of them!

As a finale four flags were supposed to have unfolded but,sadly,only one of them unfolded.It didn't matter though it was still very cool!

I forgot to mention,the cart doesn't actually get blown up,I'm not sure but it might have been the same one for all this time!