Arriving in Rome after six weeks in the Middle East was like coming home. It felt great. It occurred to me that I hadn’t had a glass of wine in a month. I fixed that in a hurry. It also occurred to me that, grand as Rome is, it’s also the capital of stupid stuff sold by vendors on the streets. Each year there’s something new. I’m glad the clattering crickets are gone. I miss the flaming Manneken-Pis statues. I can’t imagine anyone buying one of these chemical blobs — but they’re everywhere, so they must sell.
What are your “stupid things sold on the streets” memories, experiences, and (if you dare to admit it) favorites?
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I didn’t consider it stupid, but the best thing my wife and I bought on the street in Rome on a hot summer afternoon was the fresh coconut pieces. It satisfied both our hunger and our thurst for a short while. We still talk about it occassionally.
they sell those in malls here in the states. supposedly, they only contain distilled water.
My husband and I were wondering that when we were in Rome last November. We would sit in the piazzas at night and talk about how fascinating it was that so many people (in just one place!) where selling these things, and yet I never saw one person buy them. But they must sell some of them, right?
The ironic part is that I found watching those blue lights flying in the sky (what they were selling at the time) so mesmerizing… perhaps in the end they had me too. :)
If Rome’s the Capitol of stupid street stuff, Paris and Venice are right up there in the running. Still, this past December, visiting Rome for the first time, I knew I was approaching a piazza every time I saw blue lights floating thru the air. Guys in their 20’s were in EVERY piazza at night trying to sell luminescent devices that they’d slingshot up into the air and which would then float back to earth, glowing blue. The only buyer I saw was what I presume to have been an Italian mother pushing one child in a stroller and who bought one for her slightly older kid who was walking alongside, but that child broke it immediately. The piazzas also had lots of guys hawking flashlights that projected a sparkly green/gold light – not really great for finding your way in the dark or spotting the dog crap on the Roman sidewalks before you stepped in it, nor very Christmasy, either. Maybe all that stuff got sold out before Rick arrived in May.
My best buy was last December in Paris. We went for a week with some friends of ours who at 60 and 70(they are very young for their age) didn’t even have a passport. So we walked over to the Eiffel Tower every night after dinner and the hawkers kept after us to buy the cheesy Eiffel Tower statues, which I actually started getting fond of. So one night I got two Statues one for her and one for me for 10 Euros and then he even threw in two Eiffel tower key chains!
They were selling these last year at this time when I was in Rome but I also saw them in Florence and Venice. I remember thinking “who would buy those” but, since they are still being sold obviously someone buys them. The only thing I can remember buying from a street vendor was a necklace on the beach in Costa Rica. I wonder what ever happened to that.
Those freaking flying toy helicopters that would fall on you as you ate dinner!!!!!