Florence The Basic Needs of life

There are certain items without which I cannot maintain a sensible life. Nowadays this includes a printer to print the cheap eTickets which most discount airlines employ. Then I must have an anglepoise lamp as the ceilings of my apartment – part of an old palace – are over five metres high and the lighting is inadequate for working at my desk.

Where does the average Florentine go for these items, these days? Why, IKEA of course!

The free IKEA bus leaves from the main station about every hour and seems popular. But, when I go in the store, I see Italians eating half-heated hotdogs, wondering why they are eating them!! Bland cool hotdogs seem to be the signature dish of this store. Of course, I try one (they cost 70 cents after all!) but I also try a Sicilian ball which is equally bland but at least slightly Italian.

I buy my anglepoise lamp for under ten euros from my credit card. (I couldn’t find anywhere to pay cash.) Then to the technology store next door to buy the cheapest printer/scanner they have. I’m back on the bus within an hour or so.

It turns out that you can buy almost everything in the lanes. On Via del Corso itself I bought the USB cable for the printer plus a multiway block. They also sold me an adapter to enable the whole lot to be plugged into my non-standard antique electrical sockets. I also found an optical shop where I managed to buy a travelling alarm clock and a card shop where I bought some sellotape for putting my name on the postbox inside my building. If you are prepared to walk around the area looking hard, you’ll find a tiny shop specialising in the exact thing you need. Most of the shops are incredibly narrow but go back a good distance.

The best reggione is sold in a little shop nearby – pure white peaks of beautiful parmesan! They never cut the cheese. They manage to break it along fault lines. I have no idea how they do it. They also sell beautiful proscuitto. But, at the far end of the lane is “Il Super Mercato” where you can buy stuff SOTTOCOSTO with “prezzi piu bassi della Pasqua 2008”. I presume that’s because of the financial crisis.

There are many enormous bookshops. I try to stay away from such shops but I have bought a cheap paperback Oxford Italian Dictionary and a phrase book full of stuff you don’t need.

We have a crazy organist in the ‘built-in’ church next door. I’m not sure if he wears a mask but he can certainly play the excellent organ there. The acoustics are perfect so the smallest sound is heard wonderfully. But the loudest sounds can be heard all down the Corso and particularly in my front room even though it is on the third floor (60 steps above the street). There are ranks of (Spanish) trumpets reaching into the body of the church and I can clearly hear the excellence of the pedalling from my apartment.

The remarkable thing is that he doesn’t stop for a pause between pieces. After the Widor Toccata, you really need a few seconds rest but this person will immediately start a Bach Prelude and Fugue. Remarkable!!! And this will go on for hours!!! Crazy!!