Ciao-abunga

October 04, 1999

The Swatch Wave Tour hit Florence with a 1,000-ton artificial wave in a huge tank that had surfers including pro Albert Liu (below) ripping the lip near the 15th-century cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore. The wave reaches 13 feet high, and the machinery that generates it circulates 130,000 gallons of water a minute. After a four-day splash in Piazzale Michelangelo (that's Piazza Mike to you Mets fans), the gear was loaded into more than 40 tractor-trailers and trucked away.