This was originally just one of a number of "background" shots that I took. At the time I thought "meh, nothing special here" and just tagged it and filed it.

However I'm writing this over 4 years into the future, and something has changed that. The Segway scooters that they are looking at, the scooters which were hailed as a revolutionary way for people to get around when they were launched in 2001 and which soon populated many tourist locations such as Firenze... are no more. Well, more precisely they ceased production in July 2020, though the 140,000 Segways that were sold in the 20ish years of production won't vanish overnight. However in time their batteries will die and other replacement parts will stop being available when the originals wear out, so scenes like this will become nothing more than memories in galleries like this one.

No, it wasn't killed by Covid; the writing was on the wall long before that. The company claims that one problem was the quality of the Segways; that while they were pricey at around 5 grand each, they were so well manufactured that they would last for years meaning that there wasn't a lot of demand for replacement units. Since they never became mainstream outside of niche markets like law enforcement and tourism, the market for new units wasn't there, so fewer and fewer units were sold. E-Scooters will do a similar job to a Segway, and are smaller and cheaper.

We ALMOST took a Segway tour or two on our trips, but for some reason or other it never panned out. If you want to experience a Segway then once this nasty little virus is killed off, you may want to do it sooner rather than later.

Of course, that is an "if", since Segway riding requires SOME level of skill. The company was bought by British businessman Jimi Heselden in 2009. In 2010 he died after he plunged from a cliff in Leeds (in West Yorkshire)... while on a Segway. No, I am not kidding, and it doesn't appear to be an urban myth. It appears that he backed up to allow a man walking his dog past, and lost control of the Segway. So... maybe avoid any place with a cliff or large drop near it.

No wonder the woman looks concerned.