One thing I forgot to mention

Marco is a great chef and entrepreneur. He opened the restaurant where I work about three years ago. The restaurant is decorated with bold colors and modern art and features a courtyard out back where visitors, both Italian and foreign, can enjoy the Tuscan dusk.

Most of these visitors must be surprised by the tattoo/piercing parlor that opened across the way in June. Nestled in the a thousand year old castle, the shop is painted black with gold trimming and also features Lucky 13 Apparel. Leaving work one day, I saw an Italian grandmother in a cashmere sweater looking first at a black hoodie encrusted with a fake diamond scull (100 euro), then at a pleather belt (35 euro), and then at a set of handcuffs ("for sex").

The shop has caused a small stir among the more conservative citizens of Ambra, and students of economics know that the solution should be Coase's--the family restaurant should buy the tattoo shop. And then shut it down.

The latter will never happen, because the former already has.

Marco, a great chef and entrepreneur, is also a tattoo artist and the athiest drummer in a heavy metal band. Anticipating public consternation, he named his tattoo parlor "Doctor Madd" rather than "Doctor Satan." The shop in Ambra is doing quite well. Marco plans to open other stores in Florence and Arezzo.

I mention this to shed light less on Marco than on the area, because Marco's shop can survive only as long as there are people who require his services. There are British and German tourists that walk among the castles and celebrate the red wine and rolling hills. There is the nearby bridge, which Leonardo da Vinci painted into the background of the Mona Lisa. And there is the youth culture. Here, you can get a piercing with your pasta. You can drink prosecco with folks with multiple tattoos and barbells in their ears. You can learn about scarification until the explainer must go home for dinner with his mother.

Rock on.