There was a time when I thought I loved the experience you get when you walk around a mall. I might even say that I still feel that way when I go into a store like Macy’s even though many are attached as the main anchor to many malls in this country. Someone told me once that when you are talking to a person who makes their living in finance, they only see things in the language of dollars and cents. At first this may sound a bit unusual but there is a lot of truth to it as well. I spent my entire life in the operations part of business, I always saw things from an operational perspective. Every time a new idea or process came along I would look at it from the perspective of the people who would actually be doing the work. For better or worse, it is what operations people do.

The place I am right now in my life has me passionately attached to my writing and photography, not from a financial or operational perspective, now I look at things because of their historical and story telling value. Even though I have lost some of the “experience” I used to feel when walking around a mall, I still enjoy a walk around a throwback retailer like Macy’s because of the history that got them to where they are today.

One of the things I have come to enjoy about traveling in Europe, especially in Italy, is the local connection you experience when visiting all the shops in any given neighborhood. This photograph is of a shop in the wonderful city of Florence, Italy. I have been to Florence at least a dozen times and I can’t see myself ever going to Italy without making my way to one of the most culturally rich cities in the world. Yes of course there are tourists swarming all over the place with their over priced selfie sticks and wanna be Italian leather made in China. This is what tourist areas do so well isn’t it, the old bait and switch routine.

From my very first visit to Florence I have been able to experience two different periods in history that speak volumes of how the art of immersive travel works for me. Of course there is its connection of being referred to as the birthplace of the Renaissance. While visiting the historic and cultural icons of this Tuscan gem you can’t help but feel the presence of the early masters as you make your way through the cobblestone streets and into the museums and galleries where their works are still on display. Then of course I have come to appreciate the walks though the streets of Florence with memories of having watched WW II movies when I was just a kid. So many of them with American and Allied troops walking through the streets of bomb laden cities trying to preserve more than ten percent of the worlds artistic treasures.

Today, many of the local shops are still being run by families that have been in business for decades. Florence is their home and whether their wares are food, leather, gelato, toys, or baked goods, they all rely on the tourists as well as the locals to make a modest living. There is such a neighborly feeling in these cities compared to walking around the massive malls back home. I remember when I was a kid and before the onslaught of malls in this country, the feeling in our own neighborhoods was quite similar. There were small markets and butcher shops in nearly all of the neighborhoods, small clothing and shoe stores, drugstores with soda fountains and ice cream. You always felt like you belonged and were a good friend of the proprietor.

Time does march forward though doesn’t it? Yet, there are still so many places so readily available to take us right back to the kind of life that feels as though we are only days away from. All of the things I write about now have a prescribed destiny of becoming a part of my memory. A memory that takes an occasional nap, but is so easily awakened by the sights and sounds of a world that can never shed the histories that brought us all here.

Talk soon…

G