½ûÂþÌìÌÃ

 agriturism require that the food you serve is produced by you...including the meat... and varies according to the province...most probably down as far as the comune as to the percentages you have to produce yourself... so if heading for retirement would think that it would be virtually suicidal to think that way as running a farm means longer hours than any other job most probably that there is...pools... the thing is that virtually everyone can say pratically everything you said about the rural life, the close by facilities ...the walks the views... if you think about it thats why most people move here...  to my mind the essential thing if not on the coast is the pool... lots of work...expensive... and ecologically unsound... but its what people want on holiday in a hot climate... ok not everyone...finally something to get you started... i posted this link for Abruzzo on the old forum ... anyway heres the national one... so click on your region and you will see at least what the start is like... impossible things like not being able to serve fresh food only cellophane packed... some of the tax regulations and lots more.. such as the limit on the amount of bedrooms... and the limit as to how many days you can open... its all pretty boring stuff... but recentley we heard of an english run place that got in trouble for both staying open beyond the number of days and not filling in forms about who was staying... not sure whats happened to them but think they are no longer running a holiday letting/b&b service... basically they upset someone a few villages across... ½ûÂþÌìÌà that didnt like the competition and were easy targets ... because they had not registered their business properly... cannot say i have much sympathy for them... Abruzzo seems o be over run with foreigners working without paying any tax... in all fields... from building to selling property and holiday letting... like everything here though time and gossip catches most of them out... so admire your approach to doing things in the right way... it will be worth it if only for peace of mind 

 there is a member...Russ ... who as far as i know has pretty well rarely for most of those i have heard of opened up a B & B here in abruzzo following all the legal italian requirements... not easy... and after visiting their place its most probably one of those five star types of accomodation in a rural setting with pool that is the dream sort of holiday accomodation that one might well look for if wanting something quite,friendly and luxury i mention all this because it seems to me that to make a living at this sort of thing you have to offer something of quality... am sure you can PM Russ and he will be able to offer some good advice...or also if you care to take a look at their web site... have posted a link and you could contact him maybe through that ÌýÌý

 that all wednesdays from now on will be rain filled...  i believ this bbq has for the moment a worse record than wimbledon... re weather...although thinking more on it maybe you have allowed them to play in what seems to me to be fairly typical Marche weather whilst you have drawn down the wimbeldeon gloom...if its any consolation... Tuesday is the day of change... that is next weeks Tuesday...  so you should be pretty safe from now on... for whatever date...you have my sympathy 

 Italy has average speed systems on most of its motorways now ...cannot remember the name... anyway imbedded tracking systems that calculate average speed over a certain distance... and they are pretty common... the fine gets sent to you... they dont need to stop you...basically i agree with the above post...whats the point... you gain pretty well nothing by doing even 30-40 kmph over the limit... ok if you are travelling through the night with no traffic and your car and your wallet can handle plus 100 kmph... you'll gain... but most cars are not capable of that ...even less the drivers....in my youth i used to drive for an australian camping tour company.... taking generally Aussies around europe... did it for a few years... we had these dutch mercedes coaches... with bleepers that went off when you reached rev limits.. around the 110 kmph... so over the speed limit by 10 kmph... normal coaches were limited to 90... but we had electronic braking systems that allowed the coach to go leaglly to 100...  all very boring ... the point is that travelling down say from Calais to Nice you would get overtaken several times by the same cars.... and eventually in the late afternoon you might even see them at the toll booth as you ended the motorway part.. now you couldnt go faster than 110... but they had been doing white knuckled journeys... heavely breaking when some idoit following the speed limit pulled out in front,... stops for fuel... and fearful glances at all parked cars in case they were hiding speed cameras...  only to pay fines anyway because as alan rightly said in another post even back then they had average speed systems in france... so whats the point... i set the car to do 135 here.. turn music on ...sit back and relax and arrive wherever quite happily and not a drop of sweat... those that blast past look like they are trying to tear the steering wheel off the column...and the way they grit their teeth suggest sto me that a dentist visit to renew the plates will be soon in the offing...speed kills

 L'Aquila had another larger type settlement yesterday afternoon... apparentley 4.1 and sited a few kms from the G8 site in five days time...  according to experts this is normal but what they are saying they do not like is the new activity in the Rieti area...maybe they are just being cautious because of the problems of the L'Aquila quake and the build up of activity before and the arguing over pre warnings... anyway thats what they are saying on the news here... by the way... the G8 is going ahead...  so if the US president is turning up then presume the place must be safe.... 

 ok my opinion might well be based on the fact i also live here ...but i liked it as a travel article ...not as gushing as many and the holiday sounded fun....  like Russ says... its good to see that Abruzzo still can hit the travel pages ... with an excellent description of what makes the place so appealing

 Maria... ive been maried to an ½ûÂþÌìÌà for almost as long as you and for the first ten year she moved up to the UK... after that we moved down to Abruzzo... so not relevant to your region... however after just 7 years i have serious problems with my english vocab and spelling...   to the suffereance of forum users that read what i have to say it has never stopped me... writing long replies too...  like Valentina i aprecaite your long post... and did not look at the spelling because even though i dont live near you the the words interested me morehopefully you will find this place... much like i do a welcome place to move to without having to travel out of Italy...  both as a place to speak english, have a good debate... and pass on tips and get some back

 might be worth a try we have a dongle with them costing 20 euro per month which gives you 1 gb plus 1 gb free...why they dont just say 2gb beats me...however works well and should imagine its one of the best for coverage in Italy... being the national telephone company...  mobile divison...  we did try 3 but found that beacuse it doesnt have good signal coverage here it kept working through other providers an hence as the very small print explained the costs were much higher...anway as an alternative the tim / alice combo seem pretty good to me as a mobile internet system

i enjoy a good debate... the comune has to my mind at least the least weighted opinion... locally it might seem so and politically in terms of getting on but again to my mind this is often a misconception on people that feel strange within the system... ie foreigners...---------------------most comune officials have their jobs via very little educational substance and ...which is to me genuinely not a problem... but they also have very limited brain power to see beyond their comune,provincial or even regional boundaries... that is a problem when it comes to dealing with situations outside the norm... their capacity to think outside a cube and to even be aware of a changing world outside that quadrant...-------------------if you are happy to accept that some comune official with no legal training, very little ability and in a job solely for the pension... or because his/her cousin was the mayor four hundred years ago can rule on your life here and what you can and cannot do then hopefully that comune official is in agreement with your desires or wishes...  if not and yo know you have a legal right to what you want then they deserve need to be challenged and made to see the error of their ways...---------its a common held view here that with a few exceptions most comune officials are inadequate in their work, generally lazy and very often incapable... and in fact new laws under this government are trying to eek out and get rid of those people that make the local ½ûÂþÌìÌà comunes basically a menace to all that live here.. sick pay... has been changed so that those that work there now have to justify a working life where they appear as sick more often than they arrive at work... basically because they are doing second jobs...higher paid but without the pension rights...which is why working for the comune is for italians a sort of Californian gold rush guarantee for their elder life retiring early and living off a very full income...-----------anyway my view discussed with many ½ûÂþÌìÌÃs is that if you front up to these people if they are not willing to oblige in terms of accepting rules  that are the law and can bring a bigger entity to bear upon them they generally cave in and a bit like Uriah Heep apologise profusely for you not having understood them properly... they were not saying no or never...so i still believe your opinion is wrong ...if you believe a bunch of idiots has the most weighted opinion.. i believe in the law having that... and if you front up to any comune they back down and agree... providing you can afford the right people on your side... and generally without any problems at the end of rancour... what they know is that you have more power than they do and in Italy this is a cause for respect... they end up your friends for life.... so it does matter in the upmost what the law says and the comune if going aginst the law has no weight at all-------------finally and with no disrespect intended... knickers in a twist is pretty derogatory and condescending... suggest you read Ram and Gardas comments and the other more carefully... and really it would appear to me that if anyone has underwear problems it should  maybe be you that tries  unknotting yours first ...-----------excuse my dashes... and going off thread... obviously this is now far from the original persons posting but have seen their reply and they have resolved their problem ... so feel free to wander off into the debating realms...  and a thank you to them for staritng up even if not intended a lively and obviosly controversial debate over the different perceptions of life here in Italy

for me this is more to do with how Italy is changing in a political sense away from the old extreme left / communist control of ownership and capital growth...ÌýÌýam sure even Prodi realised the futility and anti liberty aspects of many laws introduced under his stewardship... to appease extreme members of his coalitions when it came to their principle of no private ownership of propertyÌýÌý... should all be state owned...... a lot of these laws still exist... see many of sebastianos reports on how a business is assessed here and the gestapo type methods used to enforce them...... am fairly well sure that however the rules get changed the practice of how investigations are triggered and the difficulty of arguing anything with the investigators will remain the same whatever the EU saysunfortunately Bersani is running as a candidate for the primaries for the PD party ...unfortunately he is just ahead of franchescini... fortunately polls here show that they are running head to head at around 15 % each...whilst the overwhelming view is that the PD needs a new younger more forward thinking form of leader...