Store windows--and merchandise displays like this one in Florence with Medusa wearing a nose ring--can be pretty alluring in a place like Italy.
Trieste
When I texted Thom this photo of his favorite underwear brand, he gave me an assignment: bring me back six pairs, any color. But it was too late. I'd already departed Trieste and I never saw another store.
Venice
The first time I encountered a Duck Store in Poland, it enchanted me. No more. Familiarity really does breed contempt.
Florence
Has any American company done a better job of re-branding? Apparel once purchased at Midwestern feed stores is now available from trendy boutiques in Center Historico!
Milan
Rinascente proves that at least one bricks and mortar department store in the world isn't on life support, although it's no longer Italian-owned. But good luck getting a sales person to help you!
When traveling, I often ask to photograph people I meet. With the exception of Trieste, my first stop, I didn't do this as often in northern Italy because the extraordinarily high volume of tourism discourages anything other than commercial interactions.
Trieste
Eighty-two-year old Cosimo, a friendly passenger on a local bus who spoke good English, tipped me off about the best stop to experience Castello di Miramare.
The otherwise very pleasant and informative desk clerk at the Hotel Colombia taught me a lesson: don't expect Italians in the hospitality business to recommend restaurants NOT frequented by tourists, perhaps because very few of those exist anymore.
Luca, who worked at the LET"S Museum gave me a brief lesson on his city's complicated past when I asked him about a sign I had seen earlier in the day: "Welcome to the Free Territory of Trieste." He said he had twice visited New York City, once as a young boy in the 70s, and again in the 90s.
This peaceful young guy in front of the Monument to the Fallen in the Great War proved to be a knee-saver: when I asked if I could descend San Giusto Hill using a staircase, he pointed out an elevator for that purpose.
Italian Polizia look at tourists with camera phones as skeptically as New York City cops.
An employee of this bike shop on the Lido reported that unscrupulous hotel managers often don't inform guests arriving on bicycles that they are not permitted in most parts of Venice.
Bologna
Woodworking Shop
Notaries once held positions of significant power. These young people read and scrolled beneath the tomb of Rolandino De’ Passaggeri, who helped students enter the profession after he became one of the local university's most significant figures during the Middle Ages.
Piazza San Francesco
This woman managed a bar that welcomed day drinkers on the Taste of Bologna food tour.
Nearly 100,000 students attend the University of Bologna.
Uneven pavement and cobblestones must shorten the life of scooters.
I bought my only souvenirs of the trip from these artists, a pair of small collages adhered to wood, one anchored by Alice in Wonderland, the other by Twiggy. When I told the woman I had saved issues of Vanity Fair for more than four decades to use as resource material for my amateur attempts at collage, she reacted as if I had discovered a gold mine.
Overloaded Bicycle Delivery Man
Piazza Maria Santa Novella
Employee in Period Dress, Palazzo Davanzati
Milan
Sunday Bicyclists, Bastioni di Porta Venezia
Did I board a subway car or wander into a moving party? I thought I was tripping.
Dining alone makes me feel extremely self-conscious. The maitre d' at Antica Osteria Cavallini didn't help when he showed up at my table with elaborate dessert prep tray, including a mountain of vanilla gelato.
Luxury Shopper, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
Guess which woman I respected more on the Piazza del Duomo.
