The unprecedented heatwave came to its end with an unsurpassed storm. It all started around midnight, when there was a sustained lightning show to the north of Motovun. It took place in Italy and Slovenia. For close to a couple of hours, there was hardly any sound of thunder reaching the hilltown, above which the sky was still studded with stars. And then it came ever closer as the lightning show intensified. At some point, there were about ten bursts of lightning a second. They got brighter and brighter, as well as louder and louder. The storm formed clouds close to the mouth of the Mirna to the west of the hilltown. The clouds got ever thicker and more menacing. Strokes of lightning came closer and closer. Their profusion and intensity were mind-boggling. Standing on the terrace of my house, I kept shaking my head as I squinted at the lightshow. A curtain of rain approached along the river, and I started closing all the shutters of doors and windows on my house. By the time I closed the last one, the storm gathered momentum and Motovun got hit by violent wind and much rain. It came down in buckets around three o’clock in the morning. The street behind my house turned into a stream in just a few minutes. At the time, the last party of the first day of this year’s film festival was still in progress, and people assembled at the lower square started running down Borgo. There was exhilaration mixed with panic in their cries. Most of them were in their twenties, and the lightshow was a joy for the merry crew. But I have never seen such a storm in these parts. It was simply stunning, just like the preceding heatwave. The future will be spectacular.