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  My 10 year old Berlingo van has now made 2 trouble free trips on Alan's route. I saved 19 euros tolls in France by cutting down to Reims then across Country to Nancy and on to Mulhouse.The tunnel between Nancy and Colmar costs about 4 euros but the trip over the Vosages Mountains is a steep climb so not for the fainthearted! From Mulhouse( overnight stop at Formule 1 on Mulhouse exit) you then have a very picturesque but hilly drive to the St Gottard tunnel which has no hard shoulder and with Polish lorry drivers keeping very close to your rear bumper for 16 kms if you dont go over 60 mph it could be a bit hairy! The rest of the drive to Milan is easy and so is the motorway from there on but do expect lots of traffic around Milan and lots of lorries driven by maniacs!

On the same subject if anyone based in Cornwall / Devon wants any smaller or delicate items taking out in May I can find room.I cannot take large items of furniture. I will be driving from Como, Milan, Bologna, Ancona to Pescara and am happy to drop off en route at a suitable meeting point not too far from the autostrada. A small donation towards petrol/tolls would be nice in proportion to load.  

 I've found a bar and a garage near us with good internet access and free! No need to drive up a mountain and I can even buy a lottery ticket/beer bag of crisps! This is in very rural Abruzzo.So look in the nearest village . I spent 3 months on my own in Italy last year so I can sympathise with Tess. Facing leaking rooves, storm damage and smoking fires can be bearable if there's 2 of you but on your own with a 13 year old teenager its slightly different.        

Christmas Gift?  If there is someone that you haven't bought a gift for yet you can make a donation using paypal to My family alays get a donation to a charity as a gift and we choose a different one every year. Much better than chocolates or bubblebath !! The situation with vets in Italy puzzles me.Why is it that they feel it is better to let a confused and unhappy animal fend for themeslves in the wild than put them painlesly to sleep? Many of these abandoned dogs and puppies will die an agonising death from poison or will simply starve. There seems to be an 'out of sight out of mind' mentality operating throughout Italy when it comes to unwanted animals and its really not good.There are a few individuals like our post lady who are having to deal with the results of this crazy way of thinking and its really not fair on them.She has to buy animal food for all of the strays in our village from her wages.

Well as a non - resident I do pay ICI so I'm pretty much disgusted at the state of our road.Its probably only going to take one more winter like last year and it will be impassable. 5 years back it was perfectly ok.  Personally I'd gladly pay up my 150 euros each year if the comune would carry out any sort of repair. They do seem pretty good at sending out teams of men to strim the verges in the summer - our friends lost their phone and interenet last summer when the fire they lit set fire to a telegraph pole! I think there needs to be more joined up thinking in these comunes. I'm sure some people do work hard and not cluster around the coffee machine for endless chats and coffee - that must just be when I come in? Perhaps if the receptionist was a bit more interested in helping with the query in hand rather than trying  to sell me her house I might get somewhere ! I think I posted here a few years back on farming methods and got told off for offending ½ûÂþÌìÌÃs!! I expect ½ûÂþÌìÌÃs might feel even more offended to find their house buried under a landslide! Anyway both farming and building methods need a total overhaul to prevent these tragedies. And comunes need a good kick up the a..e!!

 I laid a very small area of cotto tiles on the floor  between the bedroom and hall. These are all old tiles we have recovered from the ground all around our house. It costs about 1-2 euros for an old tile now so I'm quite happy to be saving money for a change. These old tiles are all slightly different sizes so you can imagine there was a certain amount of 'langauge' as I tried to fit them into the area I'd marked out and make sure they were all level ! I lay them into a bed of lime and sand that I spray down with water every so often.There shouldn't really be much of a gap between them but this makes them tricky to lay which is why when builders work with them you tend to get an ugly 2cm gap! Sorry builders! Anyway I only covered a square meter and it took a whole day so I don't think I'm going to get rich from taking this up as a profession but it was so satisfying to step back and see what I'd done myself. Only 30 more square meters to go! Wish me luck!

it's not surprising that he governor is sitting on the fence as I bet he hopes to become a very rich man if drliing goes ahead ! I say if but its my impression that it is already taking place in some areas where licences for extraction have been grantedScientists seem to agree that drilling in an earthquake zone carries its own risks. In Basel in Switzerland an earthquake occured soon after some major drilling for a geothermal plant had occured .Smiliar events can be found across the world.I hope that all those ( me included ) who oppose the drilling will also consider the fact that as oil runs out we as a society must start to prepare for the transition from peak oil to no oil .Simply stopping drilling in Abruzzo and turning a blind eye to drilling in other parts of the world or the extraction of tar from Canadian tar sands is not the way forward.If people here have websites it would be good if they include a graphic or logo that can be easily copied and pasted ( there's one on my home page) .

Hi I'm a gemini and a glass half full girl but I'd be very, very careful before signing on the dotted line !We too have experience of restoring an old cottage in the UK but this simply didn't prepare us for the complications and extra expenses we've experienced in Italy.How about getting yourself a translator and asking locally what might be for sale? I generally find at least one person a week asks me if I can sell their house for them when I'm staying in Italy!My second piece of advice is if you see a place that you like ask a local builder ( if its an old place make sure they are experienced in older property) to look at it and make up a preventivo for the works. If you want to do some of the work yourself you can deduct those labour costs from his total but at least get a figure!Finally read 'After Hannibal' by Barry Unsworth.If you still want to buy somewhere in Italy after that bravo!

I have spoken with a good and reputable solicitor and she seems to have other clients that have suffered at the hands of these people.I supect that at least those involved who speak English are following this forum and I hope that they are feeling at least a bit uneasy,but they have the trump card and that is the understandable reluctance of a British person to get involved with the ½ûÂþÌìÌà courts.Even the most optimistic outlook would mean months if not years of going backwards and forwards to various hearings ( if you live in the UK even more expense) and then at the end of it all what ? A botched job carried out under duress by total w.....s !!!!    

The only problem with this approach which I think is a good one would be the Geometra would use the same cowboys who did the faulty building work to begin with ! This is where we are on our project so I totally sympathise Ed.We decided that under no circumstances would we want the Geometras builders anywhere near our house again!