Are all travel memories equal?

We have many memories of our luxury vacation in Italy, some better than others.

Ah, Italy! Land of medieval towns, renaissance art, villas overlooking vineyards on rolling hills, and...the bus depot next to the Ikea by the Florence airport. Florentine furniture and Ikea are, truly, an unusual match. But why, you ask, would anyone spend part of their Italian vacation in this semi-industrial neighborhood?

For a recent trip to Italy, we flew Air France, with a 90-minute layover at the De Gaulle Airport in Paris. Landing in Florence a couple of hours later, the passengers wearily disembarked and shuffled over to the baggage carousel. After a 12-hour flight, unaided by any prescription sleep medication, I was thrilled to have arrived in Florence. And, just as thrilled to have the airplane portion of the trip over. Watching the suitcases go 'round and 'round the carousel was hypnotic, and I almost dozed off standing up.

But what is this strange sight? I blurrily realize that I'd been standing there for almost 15 minutes, no one is claiming the few remaining suitcases, and mine certainly isn't there. Also, there is a growing line of malcontents behind me. I recognized several people from our flight on this line, and slowly it dawned on me...Air France lost our luggage.

Standing on the line for lost luggage was my first memorable experience in Florence. I'll never forget the charm of the signora who listened to our description of our luggage, as she sat behind the bullet-proof glass. Forever etched in my memory, is the romantic sound of the pen clicking as I prepared to fill out the lost luggage documento, in triplicate. And forever memorialized, will be the tiny Air France canvas bag we got, containing one disposable toothbrush, a gram of toothpaste, the littlest deodorant possible to make without changing its molecular structure, and...one T-shirt. The T-shirt was blank, much to my surprise: I fully expected it to say, "Air France lost my luggage, and all I got was this stupid T-shirt."

It turned out that most of the travellers' luggage did not make it from Paris to Florence, and the next day they all arrived relatively unharmed. We rented a car (which we were going to do regardless), spread out our road maps, and headed back to the airport. But the street signs are in Italian (shocking!), there are many roundabouts, and we got hopelessly lost. We could see the airport, but couldn't get to it. My husband was proud to make use of the time-honored tradition of Men Not Asking For Directions. Finally, and after much debate, we decided to drive straight towards the sight of arriving and departing planes, until we couldn't anymore. Hence, the bus depot next to the Ikea by the Florence airport. The charm, the allure of old Italia. It never ends.