Sara's Adventures Abroad: Bartering in Florence

Day 20

We got up and walked to the train station to take the fast train to Florence for the day. The train was more like an airplane, where everyone already had assigned seats that you had to sit in. The train left at about 8:40, and we arrived in Florence at 10:00. The train went insanely fast, reaching 255 km/hr. We got to Florence and I went off with Shannon and Kylee. Shannon had already been to Florence when she was in high school, so she had somewhat of an idea of what there was to do in Florence and how to navigate the market. Our game plan was to walk around the entire market and scope out what we wanted, and try and find what had better prices. The market was huge, selling mainly leather goods, spices, and souvenirs. We didn't end up finding the food markets there. I knew I at least wanted a purse and was interested in a leather jacket and some souvenirs for friends and family back home. Most of the workers in the market were men and when walking through I found we would get some "comments/complements" to try and persuade us to come and buy something from their shop.
I was warned that some of the leather there was actually from factories in Asia and not the greatest quality leather. I didn't know how to check, so as long as it felt like nice leather and smelled like leather it was good enough to me. After scoping out the markets we walked to a gelato store and got some Nutella crepes then went back into the market for some shopping. I ended up getting myself a few purses, bottle openers that had the Italian flag, gorgeous scarves, a leather belt, spices and a bag of pasta. I was pretty proud of myself because I actually bartered for the majority of my purchases. We walked to the Duomo and got some pictures, along with some snapshots of the fake David statue, then we went to go eat lunch at this restaurant outside near the carousel. We didn't have time (or for that matter I didn't exactly care to) go up on the Duomo, or see the real David - maybe on my next trip. I got plain pasta with tomato sauce and water for 10.00 euros. Everything in Florence was more expensive, as it was such a tourist destination. We took the train back to Rome for a quiet evening and started getting organized for our flight back to Canada. I really enjoyed Florence, a lot more than Rome. I think if I were to go back there, I would stay over in Florence.