Shopping in Florence

During our first visit to the jewelry stores on the Ponte Vecchio (the Old Bridge over the Arno River), Emmy fell in love with an elaborate 18K gold ring that sparkled with 18 emeralds. I didn’t want cold “toast” for the rest of the trip, so made the $70 purchase. Later, I arranged for a friend, who visited Florence the following year, to buy the matching 18k gold bracelet with 64 emeralds, for $125. The bracelet was presented in the restaurant at the top of the Bank of America building in San Francisco, on our 20th wedding anniversary.

An appraisal fifteen years later determined the value of the ring and bracelet had increased to more than the cost of that entire 1970 one month trip for four. In 1995, in that same store, a simple 18k gold ring with one emerald cost $1,000. I couldn’t improve on the 1970 purchase, so why should I try.

We have an Italian son-in-law who likes to make expresso coffee. We told this to a waiter in a sidewalk cafe, and he gave us one of his expresso cups. We explained that we needed at least four, so he took that one back, but he gave us directions to a restaurant supply store where we bought four actual, for real, expresso cups from Florence.

One year we were in Florence in November, and a cold November it was. Since we needed to heat the RV, we now needed to fill the RV’s German gas bottle. A bigger problem than might be imagined. We found the proper street on the map, and since it was represented by a wide straight yellow line, we were surprised to find that it twisted and turned and went here and there, at points was barely wide enough for one vehicle, and was one-way the wrong direction part of the time. No gas was available, so they told us to come back on Monday.

Monday morning our hero was ready to fill the gas bottle. He “told” me to wait a few minutes, and soon returned driving a very small three-wheel truck. He put our gas bottle in the back, then did an imitation of a sardine being put into a can. He was a big man, and as he managed to get inside and close the door, I could almost see the door on the other side bulge. Through the windshield, all I could see was face and shoulders. In a few minutes the man returned with the German bottle filled, and charged only $5 more than for an already filled Italian bottle of propane gas.