Living in San Giorgio di Pesaro

Cortina is an up-market ski resort in Italy which has been in the news since new year as the takings from hotels, restaurants and bars over the Christmas and New Year period increased by 300 to 400% over the same period last year. Could it be a sign that the crisis is over at least for the rich?

Unfortunately the answer is no. This year the Finance Police had a crack down in Cortina. This meant that they were checking if bars and restaurants were issuing proper receipts and so providing tax to the state or were they pocketing the money themselves. From the increase in issued receipts and declared income it was obviously the latter.

The Finance Police also checked on the number of very expensive cars on the streets of Cortina. They discovered that there were over 200 expensive cars and of these 30% of the owners had a declared income of less than 30,000 euros per year.  Something not quite right there.

The event caused a stir in  all the papers and reaction went from, it was a good thing as it showed up how widespread tax evasion was in Italy and that is wasn’t just something which happened in the south, to criticism that it showed Italy in a bad light as Cortina was the “pearl of the Dolomites” and what would foreigners think.

Fighting tax evasion is one of the major aims of the new Government. In the local paper yesterday there was an article about a new ipad applications which allows customers to report to the police if they buy something but don’t get a receipt. The system doesn’t identify the specific shop but just the area in which the event occurred.

One of the pleasures of Italy is having breakfast out - which means having a cappucino and a brioche/cornetto filled with apricot jam. Having seen a recipe for them in a book I got bought for Christmas I decided it would be something I could make at home. To make them you need “Strong flour” or bread flour. I have never worked out what this is in italian getting completely confused with “00″ flour, “0″ flour”, flour for pizza, flour for cakes, soft wheat, hard wheat, durum wheat etc

So the other day we were having a coffee in the “Dolce Vita”, a cafe not too far away which has delicious brioche and I asked the owner which flour he uses. He told me it was “farina manitoba”. This is flour made from soft wheat grown in more nothern climes and which contains higher levels of protein and makes better bread. Although the wheat used may come from Canada, Russia etc in Italy it has been given the name of the Canadian Province.

So yesterday in the supermarket I saw a packet of “Manitoba Flour” and the first batch of bread (not the brioche) is  in the oven as I write.

The Christmas lights are on in San Giorgio. Unfortunately no one had donated a Christmas tree this year but the commune have been creative and have used strings of lights to create a Christmas tree shape. Although simple it does look quite good. The other Christmas decoration is the crib. It is made from metal figures which were sculpted by a local artist some time ago and donated to the commune. They are unfortunately rather dark and do not stand out. To make them more noticeable they have been dressed in plastic bags of various colours. This obviously teaches us about the value of recycling but it doesn’t add much to the crib looking good.

We have never seen the television series Downton Abbey but had heard how good it was. So we were pleased to know that it was to be shown on Italian television - Sunday evenings at 9.30. Dubbed into Italian we were sure we would be able to understand the Italian from the rich inhabitants, particularly Maggie Smith’s character. So we settled down to watch and were pleasantly surprised to discover that with digital TV we could watch with the original soundtrack. Unfortunately the ability to select the original language is only available on a couple of the digital channels but having it for Downton Abbey made Sunday viewing more pleasurable.

Outside the Osteria Casa Mina they had been using a tailor’s dummy to advertise the restaurant. Normally he was dressed as a waiter. Coming up to Christmas they decided to use Father Christmas instead. Unfortunately, a recent windy day caused a problem and Father Christmas literally bit the dust. Attempts were made, like Humpty Dumpty, to get him back together again and now Father Christmas had disappeared from the streets of the town.

A few weeks after making the road beside our house one way with traffic having to come down the road, there was been a complete change of plan. Now the no entry sign has been turned round and traffic can go up the road. Not sure why this has happened or whether it could change again.

In the last week the Marche area has started to go Digital. We woke up last Wednesday to discover that the analogue signal had been switched off and we were left with a television screen full of static. Fortunately we had already bought our digital box and plugging it in we had 12 channels available to us. Unfortunately Rai 1,2, 3 (equivilent of bbc 1, 2, 3) were terrible as the picture was continually breaking up. The other channels were better but there were no mediaset channels available. Talking to people in the village we discovered that we were not the only ones having limited channels and quality. Two days and a lot of moaning later we resynchronised the tv and this time we got about 30 channels downloaded including mediaset but still poor reception on some of the channels including Rai. Another two days later we resynchronised again and we now have about 40 channels and the picture quality is good.

At the side of our house is the road going around the castle. Just above the house the road narrows and at this point there is the entrance to the Osteria Casa Mina on one side and Maria Grazie’s house on the other. Under the last administration this road had been closed off both ways by the comune placing a large concrete block and a no entry sign. This was because as cars would drive through they would sometimes graze the wall of Marie Grazie’s house. When the new mayor was elected the block and sign were removed and the road opened to traffic again. However, now that the Osteria seems to be continuing to survive and that the entrance leads directly onto the road the council have decided to close the road again but this time only to traffic coming up rather than down. Clearly the policy option was for a compromise.
ca
Another change in the village is that the Post Office is now only opened on Tuesday, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Monday and Wednesday it is closed and the young lad who runs it has to work in another village. The Post Office as an organisation is under pressure to adopt a “business model”. The first impact was the cancellation of a saturday delivery and now we have the second impact.

Another thing that we missed while we were on holiday was the opening of an Estate Agents in the town. It is just around the corner from us and has been opened by a man who previously had a shop in the nearby town of Orciano but as he has a house in San Giorigo decided to move his business here. It is still waiting to have the sign put up over the door but it is already open for business complete with a television screen rolling though the properties on offer. The area around our house becomes ever more interesting and one can spend a lovely evening looking at the newly restored church, cross over to look in the Estate Agent’s window and then walk about 100 metres to the Osteria Casa Mina for  dinner.

For the last few years the Pro-Loco of San Giorgio have been organising a Hallow’een festival. This year the event was very well publicised and more people than ever came to walk around the town and to walk through the “Tunnel of Fear”. One of the narrow streets in the old centre is divided transformed into a long tunnel with a number of frightening rooms e.g. room of the spider, room of the witch. More than  2,500 people walked through the tunnel  with adults paying 1 euro fifty for the privilege. So many people came to the event that the police had to control the number of people getting into the old centre as there was a fear that some of the streets, which have cellars underneath, could collapse under the weight.

One of the treats on offer were roasted chestnuts or castagna (hence the name on the poster). The organisers  had ordered 500 kilograms (1,100 lbs) of chestnuts and they had run out by early evening. I think the success of the event surprised the organisers and for next year they are already preparing something bigger and better.