I woke up today magically cured and foisted myself into Florence only to discover it had transformed into a swirling mass of peoples!! People who meander and come to dead stops right in front of one New York walking lass, I might add. I THOUGHT I was coming in the off season.. how rood for it to become a holiday weekend here without my knowledge! Thus I slowly carried myself off to Dante's house, which was full of treasures for one like yours truly but I would say not all that exciting generally, though I do love me some displays of medieval potions:



And after I visited many other wondrous places, including the workshop of Simone whom I mentioned earlier.



Below is the front of his shop, looking out over Dante's church and 5000 tourists and filled with these amazing leather boxes he makes by hand the way his father and grandfather did also. As he explained a bit about how one takes raw leather and turns it into what looks like wood, I must say my head started to spin a bit as it is VERY COMPLICATED and involves many many cool looking tools that hang from the walls in a menacing and picturesque manner. He said it takes 40 days to make one large box from start to finish and he has customers who used to buy them from his grandfather.



And then his workshop fills the back:



ADMIT THIS IS THE COOLEST WORKSHOP EVER.

The end.