Bills Observations on Italy

Observations on Italy.
This trip is enlightening in many ways, afore most the steeped layers of history we find.
However not to bore you with that here are some trivia bits of the trip.

Smoking is still very much in Vogue across most of Italy, cigs a fraction off the cost in NZ. Tobacconists are everywhere and is openly for sale at all retail stores. Cigarette butts are thick on the streets. This and the relatively cheap alcohol & food fuels the cafe culture which is pleasant and though a lot of smoking happens outside, inside is clear. The populace at large seem to smoke and there seems to be little culture of change.  Related to this, one of the biggest payouts insurers make in this country is for wild fires and indeed we have seen much evidence and some blazing on road sides, it happens so often and a real risk that over summer the farmers plough a wide swath inside their fences to stop the fires spreading across their land. The fires aren't all that bad as the road side verges are not largely kept, invariably very littered and this cleans it up for a while, excepting the bottles of which there are thousands, mostly evident after the fires have razed all else. Rubbish is a real issue here, it appears despite the efforts from communes to supply rubbish recycling etc there is no real culture and the bins just fill up with whatever fits, it is not uncommon to see roadside emergency stops or laybys absolutely littered with bags full of refuse. Sometimes huge amounts like from a building site or similar. Rubbish collection is contracted out, as in most parts of the world, but apparently Mafia controls a lot of this and as they largely wont go the extra mile to clean things up, ie they will empty the bin, but the bags all round are not their issue,(this is also problematic for most contractors world wide, and who argues with the Mafia. Not to give the wrong impression, these companies aren't charging around with heavies and guns riding the trucks, in fact you could work for a company and not know it was controlled by them. There is a lot of legitimate business in their portfolio, how else do you clean money up??? A small town website we visited was most outspoken and blamed its general rubbish problems squarely with the Mafia since their company had negotiated the contract for the area. The rubbish doesn't affect all areas and once off the busy urban and city roads it is no worse than a lot of places at home.

The Italians we spoke to have absolutely no faith in central government, believe the country is broken, and believe it is largely corrupt, with no redeeming features, the only way of improving their lot is family\home\community based improvement. Family is the only thing you can trust.

Not so old or abandoned yet!

We have seen very many unfinished buildings, in many instances left for many years judging by the vegetation and general state of the building sites. Large and small. Built solidly out of concrete, single or multi floor apartments, large commercial sites, large homes, half finished, then left till they can afford more . It was explained to us that Italians don't like to take on debt, as debt gives control over your asset to a 3rd  party. So they get work done till they run out of money, then start saving again, this can take many years. It may be also that the banks are very difficult to get money out of unless you are in the know, or rather, connected & undoubtedly some were the victims of economic downturns.
 At  Lake Bolsena for two nights in a camp we were very comfortable with. A real treat being a flurry of bats playing above us for the 20minutes of twilight. Fast and small never missing a beat, as close as 1m away at times, was rather special.Where's the animals?The lack of animals has us a little perplexed. The hills & vales simply aren't teaming with gods creatures large or small. from an agrarian point of view there's plenty of cropping and haymaking happening and one is lead to believe a healthy dairy market but till yesterday not seen one cow, & only one small herd of sheep the other day. We went of piste, as we do, and actually got off the tar seal, which is a first, and came across a large collection of tired buildings with large stocks of hay and silos, and there we saw many buffalo cows milling around on a hard stand.Then it made sense, with this environment they make hay and other feed, keeping stock under cover. Buffalo!!?? Well fresh buffalo mozzarella is a biggie here. All the supermarkets, food shops, stalls sell it, and in a salad is fantastic or just sliced with tomatoes and fresh basil, drizzled with a little olive oil & balsamic vinegar, Divine.Thank you Amanda.

A type of solar cell harvesting the sun.

Large Solar arrays, covering acres, keep appearing. Solar energy is another biggy here, whether it is private or commercial I haven't ascertained. But here and in France there are very large solar farms harvesting the sun. Using largely the same cells that we had on the bus, ie cells at 600 x 1200 or thereabouts, and thousands upon thousands of them.  I assume the grass is grazed under them, but as noted very little sign of animals, perhaps in autumn they might get out to eat the grass. The other biggy is wind farms, there's hardly an expansive vista to be seen with out multiple wind turbines. Personally I think they are quite elegant ,but then I'm not a purist like Anton. Italy in a referendum a few years ago rejected Nuclear power, and with a heavy reliance on fossil, and about 30% hydro they are ramping up the alternatives. Interesting too is the motorway service areas with large ristorante's and gas stations often having huge solar installations which are cleverly placed to create shaded parking in the large car parks.

Very Small quarry 

Stone is ubiquitous with construction in Italy and has been since day one. It is very much a natural resource and is used for even the humblest of dwellings for floors,stairs, facings, ie door and window sills and architraves,and all work surfaces, they have stone work perfected. Just about every area you go through has multiple quarry sites, they are awesome, In Pisa there are literally km's of hill sides being quarried and along the motorway kms of factories processing the raw stone into block, slabs, tiles whatever, then exported round the world or simply satisfying the huge local demand.
And some times they go straight down, never mind finding a mountain, lets dig here, and there are ginormous holes in the ground where the stone is slabbed out (very neat and tidy, like cubed cheese) and processed. Huge scales of production.
Haven't seen much active building construction but timber has not been observed for framing externally, undoubtedly internally it is used. Stone or concrete block or slab, construction. I guess that's why a lot of this stalled construction can be left for so long.And why buildings have been here for ever. Often see very old abandoned villas as we drive round. Often stone is recycled and you see where they rob from an abandoned building to build new close buy.
Gelato is an Italian gift to the world. This nectar of the Gods is fabulous and being

New work wagon.

milk and ice rather than cream is hardly bad for you, in fact builds up our bones at this delicate time in our life cycle, so we are enjoying it.
Italy is not a wealthy place in the sense of the working man, he isn't well off. However in a population of over 60M people there is still a lot of discretionary income to be spent and thus there are a lot of luxury cars. Though this is from a kiwi's perspective . What we know as luxury cars at home are very common here, no doubt a lot easier to afford and source. There is  a lot of older stock as well, indeed the national car fleet possibly has an older average than NZ. And just love the 3 wheeler utes. They are very widely used and am guessing still very much available new.On a motorway skirting Rome we saw waste land, many acres strewn with construction and commercial waste, at one area hundreds and hundreds of rectangular blocks of foam insulation????? It took a minute but then click "skinned fridges"Some one was peeling the steel exteriors of old fridges (steel has a real value still ) & the rest is just left, The whole area was an eyesore to say the least.
Acres and acres of sun flowers all across Italy and a few weeks ago were looking so beautiful, but now mostly tired with their heads hanging, we assume for sun flower seeds and the oil. The other crop we've seen is corn or maize, suspect for stock feed.

From the sublime

to the ridiculous

Italy is the home of Vesper scooters and they are still very popular but so are lots of other makes and models. there a lot of big scooters. Like huge, physically bigger than most motorbikes  nearly rivalling the super touring bikes. And they can move, its not unusual to be over taken on the motorways by a super scooter, even 2 up. They dart amongst the traffic and you fear for them, we have yet to see any accident, everyone seems to be risky but they are either lucky or good drivers!! They do wear helmets but little else. Jandals Tshirts and stubbies are good to go. Oh and the sunnys:)

I like it!!

Most of our fellow campers are Italian (in fact probably less than 5%of the routes we are on are foreigners, we expect when we  get to major places this will change), however very many of the indigenous campers carry a scooter(often old vespers) instead of bikes, and they zip away lots. It is something we will look into on our return.

Road signage is very much interpreted as recommendations only, especially stop signs, because "Stop" is English they blatantly ignore it. The horn is frequently used and we now realise it is a polite way for them to let you know they are waiting patiently on

This is not unusual. 

you to  move your ass. The roads apart from the Superstrada can be very rough and really make the suspension work. Driving is a bit scary, the Italians don't phaff around, we are often passed in inappropriate places, perhaps God is looking after them, I hope he continues to look after us....