Permanent columnist Doctor Travel, owner of Concept transistor Cara & Co, tsenitelnitsa true fashion and restless shopaholic Rosa Kamenev continues to talk about the most interesting places to shop around the world. At this time the search for unusual purchases had brought her to Florence, where shopping, like everything else, is whether history, or art.

There are city shopping with a "blindfolded" - forgive me, Dubai and Singapore, I'm talking about them. Wake up in the hotel, you go into the realm of marble, air conditioning and similar stores. Comfortable and very predictable, for example, for the tired business men who know that the ring Tiffany or Gucci bag from his partner hurt impossible. Ten minutes - and all problems are solved.
Florence and shopping - a much more interesting story. The city can, in principle, to do the same as in Dubai - for example, do not get out of the shops a la duty free on the street Via de 'Tornabuoni. And you can (and should!) Chosen a different path - instead of "duty" of purchases and gifts to make the most extraordinary discoveries in the shops, workshops and shops of the city, famous and interesting to very many. For example, your jewelry, leather processing and paper manufacturing the highest quality.
Even during the Renaissance in Florence, appeared such a thing as bottega (in Russian - what- a sort of "workshop"). There's a master (maestro) created a masterpiece, and an apprentice to copy it. Therefore it is very difficult to recognize a masterpiece and a copy of it - but it is not fake! Everything was and is the most perfect quality.
Jewelry kingdom located on the old bridge - Ponte Vecchio. The bridge was originally built in 1177 and then rebuilt in 1345. Since then and to this day there are stores, shops, stalls. Interestingly, the word "bankrupt" was born on this bridge. When traders are not able to pay rent, the soldiers came and broke the table (banco). Thus, the table became corrupted - rotto. Here you have the word bancorotto.
Also interesting that on the bridge were initially only butchers. Then the family Medici tired look on the flow of blood flowing into the Arno River (and can understand them!). So on the Ponte Vecchio appeared jewelry stores.
When you go over this bridge with his companion, at once clear that the men - from Mars, but we women are from Venus ... Men stekleneyut eye sight becomes hunted - they feel trapped. The women fall into a state of euphoria. By the middle of the bridge is aligned with the breath of both: it is clear that such a jewel of beauty in this art form anywhere in this cluster is impossible to see more!
Say that the Medici family, we have to thank for the Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo, and for leather caskets are made without a single seam. Catherine de Medici brought them with them their dowries and jewelry before the wedding to the French king Henry II, and he was so impressed by them that he ordered some for myself, and followed him and all the French nobility. And has been immortalized the glory of Florence furriers and their products - another mandatory "fad" for self-respecting shopaholic in Florence.
In the 30 years in the monastery of Santa Croce was founded in Italy is the only school to teach furrier craftsmanship - Scuola del Cuoio. In those years, lived in the monastery and brought up orphans: the school should have taught their craft and give them a start in life. Now it is a school of "higher furrier aerobatics. You can go back and watch the students and working artists. Near the monastery, a maze of narrow streets and numerous leather products should look like Florence in the style of a traditional (as in the days of Henry II) and in the most modern.
Finally, the third point of our Florentine "objects of desire" - paper with a marble pattern. She has a long history: it arrived in Florence in the XVI century. Most likely, it was first created in China and then she came to the Middle East, and only then - in Florence. Whatever the case, widespread acceptance, this paper has received in the XVIII century. Initially, this paper decorated with books, only then on it began to print texts.
Most famous Florentine shops selling "marble" paper became a chain of stores Il Papiro. But do not think that this is the only option - in the historic center you can find many Malin kih shops that sell "marble products" at a good price.
Our "historic shopping" by Florence impossible to finish without a visit to one of the oldest pharmacies world - Santa Maria Novella, founded by Dominican monks in 1221. In the yard of pharmacy in a small garden, the monks grew herbs for medicines, salves and creams, mainly for the needs of the monastic hospital. In 1612 the ruler of Florence gave permission to the Dominicans opened their small shop, a pharmacy, the fame of which spread throughout Europe. Surprising, because many recipes creams and balms based on a formula invented specifically for Catherine de Medici as early as 1500, and already it something in those days, not without reason, considered a major authority and connoisseur of "Potions».
With a history of pharmacy related and origin of the word "cologne". In fact, it was the perfume itself Catherine de Medici, which she took with him to France before his royal marriage. Initially, this perfume is called - "The smell of the queen." Then, in 1725 the Italian Giovanni Paolo Feminis moved to Cologne (Koln), revived the secret to these spirits, and began to mass-produce them. In honor of the city he called perfume - eau de Cologne, «forgetting" that they continued to be issued in his homeland under a different name entirely. And we, after a couple of centuries, all complain about the current problems facing the legal protection of the brand ...
with history and historic shopping can be done away for a couple of days - if you try. And after that, I strongly advise you to visit a very beautiful store called PNP (apiedinudinelparco). Them in Florence two, and one that is on the Via Prodelconsolo, - the newest and most beautiful. Unusual shop interior, with its glass floor over some sort of medieval whether digging, either preserved columns. Exclusive range of products (even for Italy!), Very pleasant and the staff of the store, and his successful owners. Here you can sit at the bar to relax after an intense "race" around the city to release its second half to chance or to give her/him in the capable hands of consultants - will not be sorry!
Highlight of shopping in Florence is that each once you do not just buy things - you make a digression into history. Even the supposedly modern PNP will be no exception - if you ask me to find out what is hiding there under the glass floor ...

author: Rosa Kamenev