Yesterday afternoon we had some down time and Cathy and Alex had found (on Google) what appeared to be an Outlet Store, much the same as Onehunga Dressmart from the build up. So we piled in the van and set off for Palma, which is about 40 minutes away on mad, mad Italian roads. At one stage we had stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let two ladies pass and this car came zooming up, over took us and nearly took out the two ladies! It happened more than once, so their rules about pedestrian crossings must be different to ours. People toot all the time if they are not happy and sometimes shout or gesticulate!
Road works are hilarious! On the motorway in NZ if we had roadworks, there would be 50 guys in trucks of all different sizes to warn and protect and enough cones to fill a Airbus, but here they just do their thing with minimum protection! At one stage we came across a man, lying in the middle of the road with a man hole up, doing his thing, fixing something. He was surrounded by about 6 cones and cars were just zooming around him!
Anyway the long and short of it is, we never found the Outlet Store! We drove up, down, onto roundabouts, on and off random pieces of motorway, through town, through country and nothing......
We decided to head back and figured the order of the day was to get food somewhere and then go back to Reggio Emilia. Should have been easy......?
The shop hours here are 8.30-1.00 then 4.0-7.30. Initially we fell outside those hours, but figured we would come across a cafe, restaurant or bar at some stage and they would be opening soon anyway....???? Everything we saw open, we were unable to park (which is actually turning out to be the biggest hassle) and every time we could park, nothing seemed to be open. We went into one little place with "BAR" clearly written on the sign above the door, with people getting served and the extremely poe faced man behind the counter told us 'finite, finite" (fin-eeee-tae) and rudely sent us on our way!
Seems people in this part of Italy, may not be that fond of tourists? Out of pure protest- and a bit of over tired hysteria (as my stomach was sore from laughing by the time we got home) Jan jumped up on the wine barrels in front of the "Bar" and did a pure Kiwi protest......
I can only imagine that not one smile was cracked inside the bar as these are not very friendly, engaging people, but it made us laugh!!
Road works are hilarious! On the motorway in NZ if we had roadworks, there would be 50 guys in trucks of all different sizes to warn and protect and enough cones to fill a Airbus, but here they just do their thing with minimum protection! At one stage we came across a man, lying in the middle of the road with a man hole up, doing his thing, fixing something. He was surrounded by about 6 cones and cars were just zooming around him!
Anyway the long and short of it is, we never found the Outlet Store! We drove up, down, onto roundabouts, on and off random pieces of motorway, through town, through country and nothing......
We decided to head back and figured the order of the day was to get food somewhere and then go back to Reggio Emilia. Should have been easy......?
The shop hours here are 8.30-1.00 then 4.0-7.30. Initially we fell outside those hours, but figured we would come across a cafe, restaurant or bar at some stage and they would be opening soon anyway....???? Everything we saw open, we were unable to park (which is actually turning out to be the biggest hassle) and every time we could park, nothing seemed to be open. We went into one little place with "BAR" clearly written on the sign above the door, with people getting served and the extremely poe faced man behind the counter told us 'finite, finite" (fin-eeee-tae) and rudely sent us on our way!
Seems people in this part of Italy, may not be that fond of tourists? Out of pure protest- and a bit of over tired hysteria (as my stomach was sore from laughing by the time we got home) Jan jumped up on the wine barrels in front of the "Bar" and did a pure Kiwi protest......
I can only imagine that not one smile was cracked inside the bar as these are not very friendly, engaging people, but it made us laugh!!
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