CIVILIZED shopping requires discriminating taste, appreciation for quality and shops where proprietors are patient, friendly specialists or proud artisans. And time. And a strategy.
So, knowing that shops are closed Sunday and mid-day every day, on Saturday afternoon (while Chuck drove a group of students up and across Italy to a little island in the Ligurian Sea called Giglio) I drove with friends to Florence with a plan to see - and perhaps buy - only THE best.
Throughout Italy, around every corner are bits of beauty, sweet notices of births hung on front door knobs and a seamless convergence of celebrations, life and commerce. But, alas, in Florence most of the shops were celebrating the entire month of Agusto - the apex being a HUGE mid-August-eat-all-day-national holiday. Sensible shop owners have pulled down the curtains, taped a little paper note on the steel roll up door and headed to their other passions, out-of-town or out-of-country beating both the heat and tourist crowds. Many complain that it is a ghost town in winter, so also take extended vacations during the dreary months. For shopping in the future, we'll plan to come back in Spring or Fall.
Perhaps then we'll catch the artist who crafts exclusive signs out of enamel and brass - but we can't be certain. His sign says: "Aperto quando sono in vena" - "Open when I'm in the mood".
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