Rain didn’t stop play on May the First at Fornaci di Barga’s celebration of this festival which celebrates worker’s day (regrettably in Italy it is more like commiseration of lack-of-work and there were many protests from laid-off workers throughout the peninsula).
We scoffed at the rain like everyone else, almost indifferent to it English fashion. For there was still lots to see and enjoy.
The flowers on sale were even more beautiful because of the raindrops.
The local geological society’s mineral and fossil display was as resplendent as ever with many samples for sale and a photographic display of some new cave explorations in our very special limestone Apuan Alps. I especially enjoyed seeing their finds of bones from the extinct species of palaeolithic cave bear and the lovely leaf fossils:
‘Modellismo’ or collecting models is highly popular in Italy. This collector concentrated particularly on cars from the USA.
The Pistoia branch of the Italian astronomical association showed us some brilliant photos of our brothers and sisters in the solar system taken with two of their state-of-the-art telescopes. Have you booked your flight for Mars yet (like at least 4,000 other earthlings have)?
The branch who run the observatory near San Marcello Pistoiese and whose web site is at http://www.gamp-pt.net/ gave us and all those who ventured on this wettest of days an absolute treat: they brought a mobile planetarium and gave us an interplanetary and interstellar journey of mind-expanding stupendousness. The equipment used was excellent and the commentary by one of the branch members fluently informative.
I thought of Stephen Hawking and particularly what he said about our universe: “Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.”
We both space and time travelled and when the door of our little portable planetarium opened at the end of our journey we were mesmerised by the greenness of the world outside, so precious and so ill-used by so many!
Love our planet: it’s the first step to become aware about our unique lives in a unique place. Then we might learn to discover the real nature of Love itself.