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A Highlight on Firenze #bikewalk for Instagrammers on September 6th, 2014


the view of Florence from Lungarno Benvenutto Cellini

I saw the announcement of this Firenze #bikewalk event last week on the Florentine after I came back from our holiday. So I shared it to our Indonesian Community in Tuscany on Facebook page. Unfortunately none of the ICT's friends interested to join. I personally interested in the event as it was related to a popular photo-sharing application, Instagram. My goals was to find new friends.


The bike ride started from the meeting point right at la piazza della basilica di Santa Croce (the square of the Holy Cross cathedral). We biked to the area of San Ambrogio  and had a little stop in front of Parrocchia di San Ambrogio, at the fork of Via di Mezzo, Via dei Pilastri and Via Giosuè Carducci met with two long busy roads of Borgo La Croce and Via Pietrapiana. There were about 70 people joined this #bikewalk event, the name of the event was actually really fit to what we did, it was really a combination of bike and walk (with our bikes), and chat whilst waiting for the rest of the participants to gather.


There at the small square of the Parrochia, I met with Justyna and her boyfriend for the first time. It gave me relief that I finally had a chance to chat and to get to know one or two of the participants. She is a Polish who works and lives in Florence. She speaks Italian very well and even offered me to meet up sometimes so I could practice my Italian with her. I was so excited about it! Just then, we heard Tiana the leader and organizer of this event said “Let’s continue, everyone!”  The ride continued through Via Ghibellina to Lungarno della Zeccha Vecchia. We crossed Ponte San Niccolo' to Piazza Ferruci, continued along the Lungarno Benvenutto Cellini and stopped at Piazza Giuseppe Poggi to take some group photos. Remember that this event was related to Instagram, so taking photos and uploading them on Instagram were huge deals during the whole event!


Tiana and Nicolo, myself at the back on the left and Justyna with her boyfriend, and Aslaug  (^_^)v fun! Image courtesy @tianapix

At this second stop, I had another opportunity to chat a bit with Aslaug. From that short conversation I found out that she is from Iceland, lives in Florence with her husband who works and studies in Florence and has a little daughter. Tiana and Nicolo' ( a special guest of the event and a bike blogger from Rome) took some welvies [=we, selvies ~ plural for selfy] and group photos .  Then the ride continued through Lungarno Serristori, Lungarno Torrigiani, and turned left to Via Dè Guicciardini when we passed Ponte Vecchio on our right. The original plan was to have a stop at Piazza de Pitti, but as usual the piazza was crowded with tourists already.  So the stop was moved to Piazza Santo Spirito.


During this stop, Tiana made an announcement to give away a little gift ‘a cool Carrera sunglasses’ for each participant who follows the rule. That was, to take photos with other participants with Carrera sunglasses on, to upload as many photos immediately on Instagram and to tag participants you’re with in your photos. It was great and a lot of fun, as we all started to mingle and everyone started to ask all around to take some photos together without any hesitation.

#photomadness after a group photo  #dontaskmewhy, image courtesy of @aslaugdogg

A moment later, after some rest and coffee for some, the ride continued through Via Maggio, and along Lungarno Corsini after we crossed Ponte Santa Trinita, to Lungarno Amerigo Vespucci all the way to Il Parco Publico Le Cascine. Here at Le Cascine, I said good bye to Tiana and headed home for another appointment that day. It was certainly an enjoyable fun ride and a great #bikewalk event.



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