Snowfall in la Pieve

Citta della Pieve, Umbria.

Looking into the main piazza after snow

We had three inches of snow in la Pieve Friday night into Saturday morning.  The streets are very icy right now, and the temperature quite low.  The BBC online has the headline “FREEZING WEATHER BRINGS MISERY TO EUROPE.”

Not at all sure we are miserable here, but it sure is cold, and three inches of snow was an unusual amount of snowfall for this area.   It was amazing Saturday morning to experience the town’s snow removal strategy:  town workers in their traditional yellow pants with big silver reflective stripes weilding DIRT shovels to manually remove the snow.  Their pointed shovels scraped the stones as they moved the snow off to one side.   Not a single snow shovel in sight because there is so little use for that design, it is not worth the expense to buy and store it.

Snow removal

Typically the snow will melt by the end of the day, but BBC is right–the weather is extremely cold, and the snow melts and then refreezes into ice by the next day.  The main roads (outside of town) are well cleared, though extra caution is wise on the hair-pin turns when the road banks off to one side, with deep ditches just off the shoulder.   The stone stairs of the town have been cleared with shovels and salt.

All will be dry and warm again soon.

Looking north towards Chiusi, the town wall casts a shadow

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