Clear the piazza for National Day in Italy

Susan Spano’s Postcards From Rome

Monday was National Day in Italy.

I woke up early, then decided to go back to sleep. But loudspeakers started blaring and helicopters swarmed in the sky over the historic center of Rome where the main celebrations were to take place.

For days before, workmen — and, I noted, one brawny workwoman — had labored in the sun along the Via dei Fori Imperiali between the Vittoriano and the Coliseum to erect barricades and VIP grandstands.

But the holiday dawned rainy; by the time I got there all I could see was an ocean of open umbrellas. One marching band after another came by, and when I jumped onto a wall by Augustus Caesar’s Forum I caught a glimpse of marching soldiers, then a proudly uniformed cavalry division. The parade ended with a military flyover, jets screaming across my little courtyard.

In the afternoon, the action moved to the Italian government center on the Quirinal Hill where visitors were allowed to tour the otherwise closed Quirinal Gardens for the holiday. The line on the Via Ventiquattro Maggio was dauntingly long, so instead I went home and studied a little Italian history.

National Day commemorates June 2, 1946, when, in the chaotic aftermath of World War II, Italians voted out their last king and made Italy a republic. The street that leads to the Piazza Quirinale is named for May 24, 1915, the day Italy entered World War I by declaring war on Austria-Hungary.

— Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

[Photo: Susan Spano]

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