Living in San Giorgio di Pesaro and Kingston

Went to Fano to buy Anne’s train tickets and they accepted all credit and debit cards. However, Anne wanted to get some money using her English debit card. So we went to the “Banca della Suasa”, which she normally uses but this time got the message that money couldn’t be withdrawn. So we went to the BNL bank which has always worked before. Tried the machine outside which appeared to be working normally but after putting in the pin, the amount etc. it came back with the message that it couldn’t make a connection. Beginning to think that the Italian banking system had collapsed we went into the bank to see if they knew of any problems. Ominously the ATM machine inside the bank had a large piece of paper over it. We asked if there were any problems with the machines or with Italian banking systems. The assistant went to the “out of use” ATM, pulled off the paper, asked Anne to try and this time the system worked perfectly. We tried and failed to get clarification as to why the “in use” machine dosn’t work and the “out of use” machine does work. Instead we got a smile, a handshake and walked to the door. We went for a coffee.

Yesterday tried to book some tickets online from Pesaro to Zurich for Anne who is planning a visit to her daughter in Switzerland. Eventually sorted out the trains she wants and proceded with the booking process and began to pay. The process fell at the payment stage as my credit card security number wasn’t accepted. Decided to try again in case I had put in the wrong number. Repeated the process with the same result. So decided to try with Bill’s Visa card. Failed again but when trying for the fourth time Bill had a phone call from Visa to say there was a problem – request for authorisation of payment but we had no tickets. Proceded to phone Trenitalia who assured us that the request for the money had been made by them and approved by Visa but that they would not be claiming the money as no tickets had been purchased. They said that for online purchases Trenitalia only accept Italian credit cards. So we’re off to Fano this morning to buy the tickets hoping they accept non-Italian credit cards over the counter.

Needless to say there’s nothing about the change of policy on the Trenitalia website.

At the weekend Germana, one of my English students, went on a day trip to Milan. They went to see an Edward Hopper exhibition. Apparently it was a lovely sunny day and the exhibition was great. The return trip was not so great. The snow on the motorway after Bologna meant that they arrived back in Fano at 4.30a.m. A marathon trip.

The worst part of the journey was from Rimini to Fano as I also heard of people taking 6 hours to go between Cattolica and Fano – a journey which normally takes an hour.

On Sunday snow arrived in the Marche. The picture is the scene first thing on Monday morning. With the snow on Monday came the sun and it was a glorious day. Blue skies, pure white snow and children tobogganing – a perfect winter’s day

However, on the motorways the scene during the night had been less than perfect. Two friends Alfredo and Rina, had been in Bologna at the weekend. There was no snow in Bologna when they left at 4.00. But as they approached the Marche they encountered snow on the motorway. The situation steadily got worse with long queues of traffic following accidents and cars sliding in the snow. Many people were forced to spend the night in service areas. Alfredo and Rina managed to keep going and finally got home at 2.00 in the moring. 10 hours for a journey that normally takes 2.