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OBs in Italy

Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:12 pm
by normal
Hi,
I'm a crumbling OB living in Southern Italy. At the end of the summer, Ill be moving to Milan. If any one needs a contact down there, here I am. Also, are there any other OBs out here?

Simon Light

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 3:55 pm
by J.R.
Does that make you a Roman Ruin, Simon ?

(Taxi for J.R. !!)

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 10:03 pm
by normal
J.R. wrote:Does that make you a Roman Ruin, Simon ?

(Taxi for J.R. !!)
Awwww, painful!!! Mind you, I only have myself to blame, I walked straight into that one.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 12:29 am
by J.R.
You'll soon learn on this site, Simon !

Re: OBs in Italy

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 9:43 pm
by AndrewH
normal wrote:Hi,
I'm a crumbling OB living in Southern Italy. At the end of the summer, Ill be moving to Milan. If any one needs a contact down there, here I am. Also, are there any other OBs out here?

Simon Light
I seemed to have missed this post at the time as I was in Italy at the time (in fact on 1st June went from Bari to Rome). Don't live there but do visit every so often, mainly Roma and Liguria.

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 8:47 am
by normal
Hi Andrew,

I'm now 90% based in Milan and 10% based in San Severo, near Foggia. Bari, Roma, Liguria, well that's pretty well the length of the boot! Where abouts in Liguria? If you're ver in the area, give us a call: 340-8513578.

See ya,

Simon

Re: OBs in Italy

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 10:13 pm
by Wuppertal
Io sono in Italia at the moment, at the beginning of a four-month stint. In Gorizia. Not particularly near Milan, but PM coming your way anyway.

Re: OBs in Italy

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 11:13 am
by Angela Woodford
Sounds like "A View With A Blue" to me!

:roll: :roll: :roll:

Re: OBs in Italy

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:32 pm
by Lizzie
Hi guys, some friends and I are hoping to do a bit of a tour of Italy either this summer or the next; are there any places you would suggest visiting besides all the famous stuff? We'll do all that as well of course, but you know what tourist places can be like!
Thanks, Lizzie :D

Re: OBs in Italy

Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:14 am
by normal
Hi Lizzie,

If you want to get a taste of the real Italy, of sun, pasta, cheap plonk and all the rest of it, HEAD SOUTH!!! Northern Italy has lost a lot of its character, but from Roma down, including Sicily and the Aeolian Islands, that's where all the fun starts.

Italy is great for beaches, but I can honestly say that the coast right at the very tip of the heel (Puglia) is like nothing I have ever experienced before. The beaches themselves are mainly craggy rocks and kind of uncomfortable for sunbathing, BUT there is something in the air, or in the water, that makes you feel about twenty years younger. Things are cheaper down south, a lot cheaper, and the food, o wow! Hospitality is great, public services less so. There's all the culture you could eat as well. I'm thinking of places like Gallipoli, Polignano and Lecce, which is beautiful (look around,but don't hang around), and the area immediately south of Bari. It's truly magical. Most of Milan migrates to this area for the summer holidays in August.

Which reminds me: DON'T COME TO ITALY IN AUGUST!!!

Something that is not really advertised in England is the "terme", or hot spring spas. They're everywhere in Italy, from the alps in the north to the far end of Sicily. They're not necessarily expensive, and most of the time there are special offers. They can be great fun, and are something that are a bit out of the ordinary.

Last word of advice, skip Milano. It's a dump and is basically a waste of time. Seriously, if you only have a couple of weeks, skip Milano. It purports to be a cosmopolitan city, but at the end of the day, it's like Peterborough, or Dagenham. The shopping is crap. Everything you can get here, you can get in Roma, more cheaply, and in a city that will truly enchant you.

If you need anything else, just let me know!

Ciao!

Simon

Re: OBs in Italy

Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:08 pm
by J.R.
Angela Woodford wrote:Sounds like "A View With A Blue" to me!

:roll: :roll: :roll:
Sounds like the husband of a certain Cabinet minister to me !

:shock:

Re: OBs in Italy

Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:54 pm
by Mid A 15
I hope that none of our Italian contingent have been caught up in the earthquake.

Re: OBs in Italy

Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 10:42 pm
by normal
Oh crumbs, thanks for the thought.

This odd blue is okay. My boyfriend's family is in Chieti, which is many mountains away but still in Abruzzo, and they're okay too. They felt it though.

I hear there was lots of talk in England about the chap who predicted the earthquake. Contrary to common belief, down here it is possible to predict earthquakes, we do it every almost every year now, only, we're not very good at pin-pointing exactly where.

This is no hocus-pocus. I was down in Puglia last week, and everyone was talking about how an earthquake was due. What happens is that a few weeks before an earthquake hits, something strange happens to the weather. Even if the season is cold, it feels cold, but it also feels hot. If the season is hot, the heat feels wrong. This is what people down here mean by malaria, 'un'aria malata'. Some put it down to the scirocco, but if you look at the weathcock, or check on the weather on the net, the scirocco isn't blowing in. Actually, during these weeks, there is noticeably little wind. The last big earthquake a few years back hit San Giuliano di Puglia, not far from where I live. That was the one in which a school collapsed and killed twenty-six school kids. Everyone, albeit with that awful feeling in their guts that comes from hindsight, remembers the weather that year.

We just never know where.

The quakes on mainland Italy are getting more frequent, and apparently stronger every year.

On the news last night, they reported how the majority of the houses that collapsed were of recent construction. This means that the new regulations and standards brought in after the San Giuliano quake of four or five years ago have been generally ignored.

So send your prayers and make your donations, because them poor b*ggers really need 'em.

Re: OBs in Italy

Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2009 12:02 pm
by jhopgood
In Central America the earth tremors are a sign of season change. Since they are in the tropics and basically have only two seasons, wet and dry, this may not be applicable in the rest of the world.
It may not be true but as explained to me, the plates under the ground gradually get "oiled" by the increasing humidity until they slip, causing the tremor.
Signal for season change.
Having lived in earthquake zones for some time, it is obvious that animals and insects have a better idea of what might happen than we do.
My wife tells me that before the volcano erupted where she comes from, there was a "plague" of butterflies.
In El Salvador, just before the 1976 Guatemala earthquake, our parrot decided to fly off his perch onto the ground. If memory serves me, that one was over 7 on the Richter scale and we were some 300 km away, and it was one of the worst we had felt. Pictures swaying on the wall and similar.
In Managua, all the dogs started barking and the donkeys braying before the 1972 earthquake, and so it goes on.
I believe the Chinese use "natural" warnings to get an idea of what might happen. Not as accurate but better for general warnings.

Re: OBs in Italy

Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2009 12:54 pm
by Fjgrogan
Simon
It is good to hear that you were unaffected by the earthquake. I'm afraid my knowledge of Italian geography is very sketchy. I have somehow managed not to notice this particular strand in recent months, but then my mind has been elsewhere - I am currently in Finland, at Maria's, literally waiting for her to return from hospital at any moment with the baby boy to whom she gave birth on Sunday, a brother for Hanna aged 3. So far he has no name - the Finnish custom is not to name a child until the baptism, so I'm not sure how this works for atheists!

I agree with you about Milano - Maria once won a prize on local radio in Leicester to take me to Milan for the weekend of Mother's Day - it was a nice thought, but Milan is opera, football and fashion, none of which is my forte; it was the weekend that one of the local football teams won Serie A, so very noisy! But I did enjoy a multilingual Mass in the Duomo for Pentecost, and a visit to the cemetery in search of a life-size sculpture of the Last Supper. Leonardo's famous painting had been closed for years for refurbishing and was due to be re-opened the day after we got home, and La Scala was covered in scaffolding!

Kirri (aka Aunty Tigger and currently 24 weeks pregnant) arrives here tomorrow with her partner, so we shall probably be having a busy Easter weekend, as no doubt there will be visitations from the Finnish side of the babe's family. This is the first boychild for some time and destined to carry on the family surname - Vatanen.

Have a good Easter, preferably tremor-free.