Living in San Giorgio di Pesaro and Kingston

Mr Berlusconi often says that Italians are heavily taxed and that he will not add to the burden. So some months ago they announced that there would be a tax of 1 euro on every cinema ticket. In recent years he number of people going to the cinema has been increasing and we have been regularly adding to the number. So putting the ticket price up from 7.50 to 8.50 wasn’t welcomed by the cinema owners or by us. The extra euro was to go towards supporting the Italian film industry.

However, before the new increase became law there was a lot of protest from cultural bodies about the lack of government funding for spending on culture – buildings, art, music etc. In fact over recent years, and despite governments saying how important culture was to the tourist industry, the budget for the Ministry of Culture had been steadily cut. To show that it took culture seriously the Government decide to increase the budget. It did so by scrapping the idea of a tax on cinema tickets and instead put extra tax on petrol. A government spokesman said that he thought Italians would be happy to absorb the increase as it was in  good cause.

So now getting into the cinemas stays as before but not the cost of getting there.

Our internet had been down for over a week.

One morning I tried to make a phonecall but the phone was dead. A few minutes later it was working again. However, when we tried to get on the internet we failed. We contacted Telecomm who said there was a fault on the line and that it would soon be repaired. However, even after the repair the system didn’t work and so we went to Trony near Fano to buy a new router/modem. When we plugged it in we still couldn’t connect to the internet. We spoke to Telecomm again who sent a couple of engineers to investigate. They could get a signal on their modem to show that adsl was working but couldn’t get through to the internet. One of them went to the local exchange and did something and using their modem google appeared. However, when we tried our new modem no connection was possible. They suggested we return to Trony to change the modem.

When we arrived at Trony I spoke to Marzio who had sold me the modem. He was sceptical about the modem not working and asked if it had been installed correctly. I stammered something about “plug and play” at which he smiled and said that the modems needed to be activated and showed me the instruction sheet that came with the modem. I had misunderstood the instructions (even though they were in English) and so Marzio linked my modem to a computer in the store and went through the setting up prodedure. Having gone through the procedure he asked if I had someone to install it at home. I replied that now I knew what I was doing I could manage. He smiled gently and said that as he had the modem linked to the computer already he might as well activate it for wireless internet access. Within a few minutes it was done and when I returned home I plugged in the modem and here we are back on the internet. What great customer care from Marzio.

Yesterday, Sunday 6th March, was a beautiful, sunny day. Cold, but after what seemed like weeks of damp, wet weather it was a real tonic. We decided to drive to Torrette and go for a walk on the beach.

On the beach it was cold and windy and not quite the weather for swimming costumes. But we had, apart from the gulls, almost the whole beach to ourselves. We walked for about an hour.

At first sight everything seemed OK. There were lots of shingle, bits of driftwood and seaweed on the beach which is normal after windy periods. However some areas had been damaged e.g. behind Bagni Lori where we normally go in the summer. It looked as if some of the land surface had given way and there is obviously lots of repairs to be done before the tourist season begins in June.

The lovely sunny days of a couple of weeks ago are now a memory as in the last couple of days much of Italy, the Marche included, has been hit by terrible cold, wet weather. In the north the “Bora Wind” has hit Trieste with gusts up to 100 mph. In the South snow, wind and rain has caused rivers to flood and agricultural areas have been inundated.

The same has also happened in the Marche where 3 people have died after their car was hit by a wave of water, low-lying agricultural land is flooded and a state of emergency has been declared. At Senigallia the river is amost reaching the top of its banks. In the north of the Marche there have been heavy snow storms.

Here in San Giorgio we have been more fortunate as the only river in the immediate area is a trickle with the grand name of “Rio Grande” and although there was some snow yesterday it quickly turned to sleet. Our greatest inconvenience was not being able to get to the Ipercoop because the river near the store had burst its banks and flooded the area. Pam and John who had been here for 2 weeks were returning to England from Ancona. The runway at Ancona Airport was flooded and so all flights were switched to Rimini which meant delays for them.

Today (Thursday) the rain continues. It should abate over the next day and hopefully we will see some sun on Saturday. However, cold weather is forecast for the beginning of next week.