What would it mean to shop for the holidays in the delightful and almost mythic towns I've mentioned?Well, the holidays represent for many of us a time of serious gift-giving when we want to select very carefully and spend a bit more to find just the right present for the special people in our lives.
I have to admit up front that you certainly wouldn't have a hard time finding extraordinary items for you wife, husband, children, relatives, or close friends.
Except for the fact that the prices are in Euros in Germany, Austria, and Italy, the prices aren't bad; prices are in Swiss Francs in Switzerland but you may know already that it's the most expensive country in Europe.
The principal problem right now is the exchange rate - we paid $1.
42 for a Euro.
Spend 50 Euros and at that rate you've spent $71!Dare I say "Wow?"And the problems don't stop with the exchange rate.
Buy lots of stuff and you spend a small fortune sending your special gift back to the U.
S.
Since you didn't bring it in with you, you'll have to pay customs tax on it.
Take it with you and you'll have to hope it/they survive the beating the airlines will give to your suitcase(s).
Don't forget that you'll have to pay for extra pounds if you exceed the allowance granted you by the airline.
Obviously, I'm setting up a straw man here.
More likely than not you had no intention whatever of heading off to Europe on a holiday shopping spree.
I've really talked about shopping there for two principle reasons:First, even though ultimately the range of objets d'art collectibles is incomparable there, shopping sites available online have become incredibly sophisticated and offer you a fine range of worthy gifts to select.
You may even be strongly tempted not to forget to get something for yourself.
Second, whether you want, for instance, Capodimonte or Limoges, you will pay less to a U.
S.
-based online shopping site like The Global Connoisseur than you will for comparable items in Europe.
Strange, isn't it, but nearly across the board it's true.
The point of all this is to exercise your discriminating taste for gorgeous collectibles at one of the sites specializing in such items.
It won't beat walking down a street in Stresa or Lucerne while gazing in the windows and I'm really glad I could do it; but I'd turn to Apple, Dell, or Hewlett Packard to find and buy most of the things I saw and wanted when I got back home where I can pay in dollars.
They still have some value here.
I've returned, at age 71, from dragging myself over the last few weeks through the lovely streets of Middle Europe.
This is not particularly consequential to readers who neither knew that I'd left nor marked their calendars to pinpoint when I'd be back in our own beloved country.
My departure was of special interest to me because it marked forty-seven years since I first left the United States, all of 24 years of age, and headed for my first sojourn abroad - Baghdad, Iraq.
In those days it was less common for a kid of twenty-four to beheaded to fabled destinations than it is today.
I'm not really going to talk now about my total of 12 years residence in the Middle East and my nearly 25 years of experience in and out of the area, or the differences between an eager young man on his first trip abroad and a wizened one of 71 whose physical stamina was not fully up to his touristic objectives .
This time my destinations were chosen for aesthetic and cultural reasons rather than political and historical ones.
So in very late September my wife and I departed for Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland.
More specifically, we toured the famous Alpine towns and sites - places that had been for us off the beaten path in the past as we traveled to such cities as London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and so many others.
It would be very professional to say that two connoisseurs wanted to refresh their knowledge of famous makes of porcelain, crystal, and other items.
True in fact but mostly not true.
We really wanted to sit back and enjoy our first tour ever!!!As an aside, you may want to know that we intend to go back to planning the whole trip ourselves - we're just not into the regimentation required in a tour of this kind.
Anyway, despite our best efforts to concentrate solely on the beauties of bounteous nature and the charm of other centuries just outside the windows of our tour bus, we could not help gazing intently upon the exquisite windows of shops in such places as Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Berne, Frankfurt, and so many little towns right out of storybooks.
At the very least we shall hope to be inspired to be even more creative in our selection of products.
In Italy we were delighted to see that the best shops continue to stress Capodimonte and Cevik; the figurines of A.
Santini and V.
Sabadin occupy reserved places in well-dressed windows.
In Vienna, Salzburg, Berne, and Lucerne we saw Limoges, Capodimonte, Cevik, A.
Santini, and V.
Sabadin in abundance in any direction we turned.
There were admixtures of other objets d'art as well, beautiful items that we don't carry now on our site but hope to in the near future.
The cities mentioned above are of course tourist meccas and one would expect to find an abundance of the best and costliest merchandise to capture the tourist Euro.
What we find encouraging is the high expectation that tourists will recognize superb collectibles when they see them and spend accordingly.
At the very least, if our assumptions are correct, the same clientele, happening one way or another upon our site, will be comparably interested in the collectibles we offer.
One thing is very much for certain:A potential buyer won't get a better price in Europe (even though we must confess that the PC and screen aren't the equal of a medieval street or square as shopping venues).
So am I trying to get the reader to give up thoughts of roaming through the still splendid streets of Old Europe so he/she can spend hours browsing at the computer?I would be little short of a tasteless boob if I did any such thing.
On the contrary wandering through little alleys and streets in a quaint Swiss, Italian, or Austrian city is an incomparable joy.
And the choice of beautiful objects for gifts or for your own home is both endless and fabulous.
I would never want to dissuade anyone from wandering through Stresa for instance, stretched along the shores of Lake Maggiore, munching a delicious cheese and salami sandwich, and salivating over the things you see in one shop after another.
My point here is really very simple: If Europe is out of the question for whatever reason, if your purpose for going there if you could is to shop for wonderful pieces to put on that special shelf, then be glad that online shopping has reached a level of sophistication which pleases the most discriminating buyer.
Pleasing the discriminating buyer is the purpose of our site and others who try to deliver the very best of the lines they offer.
We hope that you will look through the pages of the online catalog of The Global Connoisseur to find holiday gifts that you, as a discriminating buyer, want to give to your discriminating friends and relatives.
I have to admit up front that you certainly wouldn't have a hard time finding extraordinary items for you wife, husband, children, relatives, or close friends.
Except for the fact that the prices are in Euros in Germany, Austria, and Italy, the prices aren't bad; prices are in Swiss Francs in Switzerland but you may know already that it's the most expensive country in Europe.
The principal problem right now is the exchange rate - we paid $1.
42 for a Euro.
Spend 50 Euros and at that rate you've spent $71!Dare I say "Wow?"And the problems don't stop with the exchange rate.
Buy lots of stuff and you spend a small fortune sending your special gift back to the U.
S.
Since you didn't bring it in with you, you'll have to pay customs tax on it.
Take it with you and you'll have to hope it/they survive the beating the airlines will give to your suitcase(s).
Don't forget that you'll have to pay for extra pounds if you exceed the allowance granted you by the airline.
Obviously, I'm setting up a straw man here.
More likely than not you had no intention whatever of heading off to Europe on a holiday shopping spree.
I've really talked about shopping there for two principle reasons:First, even though ultimately the range of objets d'art collectibles is incomparable there, shopping sites available online have become incredibly sophisticated and offer you a fine range of worthy gifts to select.
You may even be strongly tempted not to forget to get something for yourself.
Second, whether you want, for instance, Capodimonte or Limoges, you will pay less to a U.
S.
-based online shopping site like The Global Connoisseur than you will for comparable items in Europe.
Strange, isn't it, but nearly across the board it's true.
The point of all this is to exercise your discriminating taste for gorgeous collectibles at one of the sites specializing in such items.
It won't beat walking down a street in Stresa or Lucerne while gazing in the windows and I'm really glad I could do it; but I'd turn to Apple, Dell, or Hewlett Packard to find and buy most of the things I saw and wanted when I got back home where I can pay in dollars.
They still have some value here.
I've returned, at age 71, from dragging myself over the last few weeks through the lovely streets of Middle Europe.
This is not particularly consequential to readers who neither knew that I'd left nor marked their calendars to pinpoint when I'd be back in our own beloved country.
My departure was of special interest to me because it marked forty-seven years since I first left the United States, all of 24 years of age, and headed for my first sojourn abroad - Baghdad, Iraq.
In those days it was less common for a kid of twenty-four to beheaded to fabled destinations than it is today.
I'm not really going to talk now about my total of 12 years residence in the Middle East and my nearly 25 years of experience in and out of the area, or the differences between an eager young man on his first trip abroad and a wizened one of 71 whose physical stamina was not fully up to his touristic objectives .
This time my destinations were chosen for aesthetic and cultural reasons rather than political and historical ones.
So in very late September my wife and I departed for Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland.
More specifically, we toured the famous Alpine towns and sites - places that had been for us off the beaten path in the past as we traveled to such cities as London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and so many others.
It would be very professional to say that two connoisseurs wanted to refresh their knowledge of famous makes of porcelain, crystal, and other items.
True in fact but mostly not true.
We really wanted to sit back and enjoy our first tour ever!!!As an aside, you may want to know that we intend to go back to planning the whole trip ourselves - we're just not into the regimentation required in a tour of this kind.
Anyway, despite our best efforts to concentrate solely on the beauties of bounteous nature and the charm of other centuries just outside the windows of our tour bus, we could not help gazing intently upon the exquisite windows of shops in such places as Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Berne, Frankfurt, and so many little towns right out of storybooks.
At the very least we shall hope to be inspired to be even more creative in our selection of products.
In Italy we were delighted to see that the best shops continue to stress Capodimonte and Cevik; the figurines of A.
Santini and V.
Sabadin occupy reserved places in well-dressed windows.
In Vienna, Salzburg, Berne, and Lucerne we saw Limoges, Capodimonte, Cevik, A.
Santini, and V.
Sabadin in abundance in any direction we turned.
There were admixtures of other objets d'art as well, beautiful items that we don't carry now on our site but hope to in the near future.
The cities mentioned above are of course tourist meccas and one would expect to find an abundance of the best and costliest merchandise to capture the tourist Euro.
What we find encouraging is the high expectation that tourists will recognize superb collectibles when they see them and spend accordingly.
At the very least, if our assumptions are correct, the same clientele, happening one way or another upon our site, will be comparably interested in the collectibles we offer.
One thing is very much for certain:A potential buyer won't get a better price in Europe (even though we must confess that the PC and screen aren't the equal of a medieval street or square as shopping venues).
So am I trying to get the reader to give up thoughts of roaming through the still splendid streets of Old Europe so he/she can spend hours browsing at the computer?I would be little short of a tasteless boob if I did any such thing.
On the contrary wandering through little alleys and streets in a quaint Swiss, Italian, or Austrian city is an incomparable joy.
And the choice of beautiful objects for gifts or for your own home is both endless and fabulous.
I would never want to dissuade anyone from wandering through Stresa for instance, stretched along the shores of Lake Maggiore, munching a delicious cheese and salami sandwich, and salivating over the things you see in one shop after another.
My point here is really very simple: If Europe is out of the question for whatever reason, if your purpose for going there if you could is to shop for wonderful pieces to put on that special shelf, then be glad that online shopping has reached a level of sophistication which pleases the most discriminating buyer.
Pleasing the discriminating buyer is the purpose of our site and others who try to deliver the very best of the lines they offer.
We hope that you will look through the pages of the online catalog of The Global Connoisseur to find holiday gifts that you, as a discriminating buyer, want to give to your discriminating friends and relatives.
Source...