Monday 6 December 2010

Christmas Conversion

The Eight O'Clock News  reports that some shops at Christmas are accepting old Lira.  Surprising amounts of cash are appearing from under mattresses, out of old overcoat pockets, from nefarious and long-hidden plastic bags, and from little old ladies'  crocodile handbags scented with ancient perfumes.

Interested I looked up the conversion exchange rate: L 1,936 and a bit to the euro: L 2,288 and  similar bit to the Pound.  It all looks very ordinary to me in terms of current (very current) purchasing power.  What's all this fuss about euro debt crisis and Italian vulnerability then?  No-one's objecting to those rates this evening.

4 comments:

Weekend Yachtsman said...

So that old 50,000 lire that I've kept in my desk drawer for old times' sake could yet come in useful?

I have been expecting it would, for quite a while now.

Alas it's no longer enough to buy a menu touristico lunch for a family of four, as I remember it once would have done.

But that was in the days when menu touristico lunches were worth eating, of course.

hatfield girl said...
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hatfield girl said...

I've just changed my mind. There are places where you could get a very simple meal for under 10 euros a head.

Weekend Yachtsman said...

Hats - a very simple meal for under 10 Euros.

Yes indeed, you are right, and I know of one myself right in the middle of your own fair city, not 200m from the Duomo (well maybe 200m, but certainly not 500m).

But it's not advertised as a tourist menu; in fact it's not advertised at all, and you'd walk right past it if you hadn't had a local recommendation, and there are no tourists there at all. Except us, once.