Have a nice trip, they said. Visit some pleasant village, just one hour outside your current location, they said.
See something different from pencils and collections, they said. Blend into the real world, they said. Breathe some fresh air, go to an arts & crafts fair with your lovely wife, they said.
They also said that, indeed, that there is a small stationery shop in the village. But it even sells toys and jigsaw puzzles, it’s one of those “bazars” full of a bit of everything. It’s not even worth a visit, they said. Leave the lead behind for once, they said.
[I mean, it’s a small shop in a remote village in the northern part of Italy, and it almost surely sold out all its juicy stuff long ago — because it’s old, and also, probably, family-owned. «How many leftover items do you expect to find there?» they said.]
Well, turns out Italy is weird when it comes to writing and drafting tools, and even weirder when it comes to physical shops. One enters an unassuming door with a nice display, and one hour later, this had happened.
A 2.00 mm clutch leadholder 5209 by Bohemia Works, my first two-in-one BP+MP (Zebra Sharbo TX-2), the pen by Shaeffer with a crazy small pocket clip (for soldiers’ pockets, the shop owner said), a trio of white Lamy (Gel Roller + knock PB + MP), the strangest Wörther Shorty I’ve seen so far (in 0.5mm), a Pilot H-555-R, two coloured “The Shaker” H-305, a Pilot Clicker (2nd in my collection, probably will have to go), an unusual Mitsu-Bishi Dermatograph pencil with light blue colour, a “brush nib” twistaction plunger demonstrator, another Staedtler Micromatic (whose nose cone looks like the one from a 777-25, even though the model is a 777-15) — plus all the colour variations for the 1.3 Metallic colours by Pentel (C-213) I could get.
The fair was nice, the dinner outside was great; the stationery shop was exquisite.
Moral of the story: always check for possibly interesting shops to visit when you go out for a trip.
You won’t be disappointed, they said. 
