As I was reviewing my shots in Bridge, it was around now I realised what an incredibly pee-poor job I had done (overall) in documenting our journey. Before we left I had a dream of the entire trip laid out as a photo story. What I actually found is that I had shot here and there and whatever seemed like a good idea at the time, leaving huge gaps in between. On this particular day we were in Florence for the day yet I had far fewer shots of that visit than I would have liked.

Aaaanyway... Firenze is leathergoods central. Indeed the first place that we were taken to on our tour was a supposed leather factory. In reality it was little more than a workbench where some leathercraft techniques were demonstrated. After that we were ushered through into a leather (and other luxury goods) megastore. (Nobody say "backhanders".) Yes, I did succumb and purchased a rather nice leather jacket. Tax free, even, since it was being exported!

Ah. About that. You only get it tax free if you have the certificate that they give you stamped on the way out of the EU. "Hang on", says I, "we're leaving from Switzerland, not the EU". Hey, no problem, we're told, the Swiss Customs can still stamp it! (Switzerland is in the Schengen zone but is not part of the EU.) Of course, when we got to Zurich airport I was told that they could only stamp Swiss purchases. So now I'm waiting for the charge for the sales tax to hit my credit card because the certificate hasn't been submitted.

Anyway, this is not that place. This is a shoe store that we came across which had an interesting set of signs, including the stop sign which has been converted into a "guy carrying a plank sign". (I saw this a few times in Firenze.) And of course the "Mezzo Prezzo" (half price) sign, though I'll betcha that most of those "full" prices were never real.

Some of these people were part of our tour group.