If you step on a picture, do you have to pay for it?

Florence is the capital of the famous Italian region of Tuscany. It is one of the most touristic cities in Italy, attracting countless tourists every year. Bathed in architectural beauty, artistic charm, and centuries of history, Florence is the Italian city of culture.

Every time we go to Florence, we realize how much we missed it. Cultural cities like Florence attract us the most, and we return to them again and again, because you can see such a beautiful city a thousand times, but they can still amaze you again and again. But as with every pleasant experience, there is definitely a bad one. As you have probably already realized, we are easy targets for tourist scammers because we believe in the goodness of people and adhere to the principle that we should treat all people with kindness.

We were walking around Florence because we wanted to visit maybe a new bar or gallery, maybe have some Italian gelato, etc. When we were walking among the crowd of people, we accidentally stepped on a small part of some kind of picture placed in a rectangle on the floor, because in such a crowd of people, you don't notice what is happening where.

We hoped that we didn't do something wrong when suddenly a middle-aged man comes up to us, shouting something in Italian, but we don't understand him completely (we understand some Italian, but we forgot everything in that rush). We told him that we don't understand him and asked if he could explain to us in English, to which he just saidmoney," and money points to a picture.

A couple about our age comes up to us and tells us in English that we should just go ahead, that what the man is doing is illegal, that he wants to extort money from us, and that we should not look back. Thank God that they came and explained to us, because we would have just given him some money to not have any problems.

So, the lesson of this story is that if you see paintings on the floor, please avoid them and just walk by, as this is one of the typical scams there that neither of us had heard of before.

"Through these old streets I wander dreamily; around me Florence overflows

with her lively current of life." -William Leighton

Till next time. :)