Electricity Kaput!
October 26, 2025 in Italy ⋅ ☁️ 55 °F
I was reading late last night when suddenly, around 11:45p, the apartment went pitch dark … the wall unit stopped pumping out heat.
I checked the fuse box and the switches were all flipped correctly. I looked out the kitchen window and all the apartments were dark … a meaningless indicator at that hour as everyone could have been sleeping. Nothing else to be done at that hour to rectify the problem. I woke Mui up, told him we’d lost power so he would be aware of the problem, and keeping fingers crossed that the power would be restored by this morning, I went to bed.
Alas, the electricity was still kaput when we woke up. Mui had already gone downstairs to find the main fuse cabinet for the building. He had found another fuse box for the apartment, but no matter how many times he tried, the switches wouldn’t stay in the on position. With a message sent to Camilla, the AirBNB manager, there was nothing to do but wait to hear from her or the owner.
No electricity = no way to heat water for tea or coffee; no way to get hot water for a shower. So, we decided to go out for a typically Italian breakfast of cappuccino and cornetto … a popular pastry not unlike a croissant, but softer, sweeter, and often filled with custard, chocolate, or jam.
Braving the early morning temperatures of a crisp Autumn day, we set off to find ourselves a pasticceria (pastry shop). While Mui was checking to see what might be open, I suggested we head to Piazza de’ Celestini.
It was only 8:00a when we left the AirBNB. The streets were practically deserted … only a few early birds like us; a couple of bike groups. The sky was blue; the rising sun was adding color to the façades of the building in Piazza Maggiore. We took some photos sans the crowds that we knew would be filling the square within the next few hours. That the construction panels around the Neptune Fountain had been removed was a bonus photo op.
By 8:30a, we were seated at one of the many outdoor tables at the pasticceria Il Duca d’Amalfi … where we had lunch a few days ago.There were patrons at the tables inside, but the plaza seating was empty. Not for long, however. Soon, we were being joined by locals streaming out of the apartment buildings surrounding the piazza.
We ordered our cappuccinos and cornettos, including a couple of mini sfogliattellas … a pastry that we first tasted in Napoli and which is from the Campania Region of Italy … appropriate considering the name of the place. All delicious.
Mui was anxious to get back to the apartment to follow-up on the power outage, so he left after finishing his post-breakfast espresso. I stayed on to leisurely sip the infused tea I ordered.
Leaving the pasticceria, I noticed that the door to the Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista dei Celestini was open, so I wandered inside. The church was built in 1535 on the site of a 13th century building, and its façade was renovated in 1765. Despite how dark it was inside, I enjoyed seeing the frescoes on the ceiling and the decorations on the walls and the altar.
From the church, my steps took me through some side streets and soon I was standing in Piazza Galvani, behind the Basilica di San Petronio. The sun shinning on the orange-painted buildings and the bricks of the basilica … the blue sky … not too many people around. I just had to stop and take some photos before moving on. More photo-ops followed … of the Palazzo della Mercanzia … of the Due Torri … well, anything that caught my eye.
It was 10:30a by the time I got back to the apartment to find Mui just inside the door to the building … checking out the fuse boxes and texting with Bernardo, the owner. It was then that I noticed and pointed out a bunch more fuse boxes high up in the cabinet. In the dim light, it looked like the switches were all flipped up, but one of them didn’t look right. Pointing the flash light, we realized the switches were down. We looked for labels to see if we could identify the boxes. There were none. Mui took a picture and sent it to Bernardo before flipping the switches on.
In the meantime, I headed upstairs to the apartment. Minutes later, the power came on. The culprit was indeed the unlabeled box we had spotted.Read more