I was in Rome, Italy the other day…

… (it’s a long story, trust me)…

… but while there, I saw this thing hanging from the ceiling of a party tent. The strange thing was that at this location there were 3 more inside the tent, and 4 more of these hanging outside in the garden, all suspended about 12 feet (4 meters) above the ground from tree limbs. They’re clearly decorative somethings, but what?

This is a pretty straightforward Challenge this week, but it requires a wonderfully classical approach to search. Try it, and you’ll see what I mean.

1. What does one call the hanging thing in the above image? The topmost ring about 6 feet across (2 meters) while the bottom ring is about 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter.

The color here isn’t great, but the rings are covered in green leaves and vines. For the record, I saw more of these things in different places around Rome, always in festive spaces such as al fresco dining patios and the like, so I know there must be a place where people go to purchase them.

But if you went into a store, what would you ask for? And, for bonus points, what kind of store would you visit to buy this… thing?

As always, be sure to tell us what your thought process was in figuring this out. Let us know in the comments.

I’ll tell you my search process next week, along with all of the sidetracks and misses along the way.

Search on!

P.S. I’ll get around to the “how to search on a schedule” problem from 2 weeks ago. Turns out that I am really busy at the moment and the answer requires a bit of time to writeup. I’ll get to it: promise.