25th
No Money, No Honey
While in Rome we’ve been staying around the corner from the Campo dei Fiori. Famous now for its daily open-air market, this square was famous a few centuries ago for being the site of public executions, including that of freedom-of-speech icon Giordano Bruno who was set alight by the Inquisition in 1600. The Inquisition may be long gone, but torture is still taking place near the Campo, only now in the form of a decrepit IKEA sofa bed. After a week and a half at its mercy we decided to escape to Florence for a couple of days, if only so we could get one good night’s sleep.
And so it was that we found ourselves, after a quick early morning train ride north, lying on a king bed in our room at the Tourist House Ghiberti, staring at this:
After a giddy half hour flipping through the 10 English satellite news channels (still bad, but not Italian bad), perusing the contents of the mini bar, salivating at the thought of a bath in the full-size tub (! Full-size tub! Full-size tub! Did I mention it was full-size?), and generally luxuriating in the acres of space in our room, we decided to go out and see what the city looked like.
Where Rome looks, well, Roman with a creamy Medieval filling and an exuberant Baroque frosting, old Florence is all solidly late-Medieval/Renaissance. The streets are narrow and they twist and turn and roll over the Arno and come back again. And the best part is that they are all filled with shops! Lovely shops full of nice things we might actually consider wearing, even those souvenir t-shirts that say “Florence is for Lovers”.
Sure the shiny people are here too, using the drab bland people as human crutches while they ply the gold and silver shops of the Ponte Vecchio, but so what? They are out-numbered by the refreshingly normal-looking Florentines who somehow manage to be incredibly cheery and pleasant despite the crush of tourists that descend on their city day after day. Because of this I will forgive the occasional gold lame running shoe.
Once we had the lay of the land we quickly decided that we had to purchase our two fashion wish-list items here: a pair slouchy biker boots and a fitted leather jacket. The boots were an easy decision as they were spotted in the Oltrarno within 30 minutes of our venturing out of our hotel room. The right look, the right fit and of course the right price at 109 Euros. The leather jacket was another matter, as Florence is awash in leather stores and stalls. We took our time and poked around the rest of the afternoon and early evening. First we decided that we would not be buying one from any place called the “Leather Outlet”. We’re in Italy - at the very least call it “Outlet de Pelle” or something. We also tried the stalls around San Lorenzo, even though we despise haggling. We’re convinced we were lured into it because anyone who wears a t-shirt like this must surely be fun to talk to for a little while.
After we escaped the back of the store around the corner from the stall, having been cajoled, compared to a Barbie doll, had the flame of a lighter set to our breast and then harassed half way out of the market for not wanting the “top quality Italian leather” jacket in which we had shown a mild interest, we decided it was best to stick with a well-lit shop on a main street that posted its prices in the window. And so it was the next day, we trekked back to the Oltrano and we found our jacket for 169 Euros. We even had it tailored and ferried to our hotel while we saw the rest of the city. Ah, Florence, you know how to treat a lady.
