Florence Day

Tuesday 28 December 2010, Florence

We had a tour of the Florence Museum today, with a chance to see David, followed by a short walk around the old part of Florence. The tour was over by noon, and the rest of the day was on our own. We had to find our way from the end of the walking tour back to the hotel on our own, and this is one of those cases, again, where having the hotel along the riverside has been a real advantage. You can't get too lost if you just need to find the river then turn the appropriate direction till you get home.

Florence is known for leather goods, so I did pick up two jackets at a very good price of around a couple hundred Euros each. The leather goods store that the tour brought us into was very expensive, with jackets going for around 550 Euros, compared to about 200 Euros for the same product in most other places. There has to be some sort of a kickback scheme in place for the shops that provide "free" tours for groups such as this.

I also decided to try something I never did before, stopping in a real haberdashery, where I bought three dress shirts and two ties. The prices were a bit high (OK, very high, at 70 Euros apiece for the shirts!), but the experience, the way I was treated, was worth the money. The proprietor took a real pride in his business, spending a great deal of time with me, insisting I try on the shirts to make sure they fit well. This isn't simply a financial matter to people such as this, but truly a matter of pride. BTW, European-cut shirts are much trimmer than their US counterparts. In this style, I take an 18" neck, but the body is tapered perfectly for me with a great fit; in the US, an 18" neck would mean that you would be wearing a tent around your waist.

General thoughts on the tour and Italy in general:

• Tour pace is slow as I have mentioned before. I'm not complaining, but I think the next time I book one I will select something that is a bit more "go" oriented.
• Pizza: Single topping, thin crust pizza seems to be the norm. You can, occasionally, find a pizza with a couple of toppings, but you cannot find the "mega everything" type that you can in the US. The tour guide confirmed this, and she said that in Greece pizza was more like what we were used to in the US.
• Pay toilets seem to be the norm in most public places.
• Weather is not bad last two days: single digit Celsius, but sunny with no rain.
• Group in general is much better than the trip of five years ago.
• Shutters and laundry hanging on balconies
• 4% unemployment in Venice, 25% in Naples