sebastiano's activity

hi penny,i've just extinguished the mortage for parking there the other week, from wednesday around 1pm. thru to about 6.pm on friday cost me Euro 84,00.!...the car wasn't even inside (quick parking!?)and i had to negotiate the truck around a tiny 90° corner! the wall of which was almost demolished by other happy parkers and the Taxi which preceded me took off his spoiler on the same corner...nothing like good value no?

apparently yesterday afternoon the police and carabinieri were having a field day down at campiglione di fermo yesterday giving out E.80 FINES + POINTS OFF LICENCE FOR ALL WITHOUT SNOW TYRES OR CHAINS ABOARD....despite temperatures of nearly 18#..

this is all quite long winded but you can see all the new norms updated from the latest change of goal posts 16/01/98. see the site - http://spaziomotori.it/Nautica-patente.htm  it has everything.effectively it appears that the limit below which a licence is not required is a motor with a kw.capacity not more than 30 kw.or 40.08hp.However it appears that there are certain limitations like,for example,the distance from the coast one could not go beyong 6 miles out without a nautical patente.in order to haul the boat about you would,of course need a trailor that has to be registered with lights number plate etc and the trailing hook on the car also has to be registered in the log book of the car too.the only other thing that comes to mind is the cost of mooring and or keeping the boat in dry dock (during the winter etc)these costs vary from every single marina/comune in very popular venues can be expensive.Howver since revenue have decided to put under the microscope boat owners in Italy (searching for unpaid taxes etc) it could well be a buyers market now and you could probably pick up a nice boat much cheaper than previously.good luck.    

The fact(S) are firstly that Italian cuisine doesn't exist, there are a number of VERY different cuisines from different parts of the country.Where cultural influences from outside are more tangible like the big cities not only is there a huge variety of different restaurants (from different countries) ethnic food,from different regions of italy and you might be suprised to see how oriental and middle eastern spices are VERY present in modern cuisine for example in Milano.For the same reasons  on the opposite side deep in rural Italy where large scale immigration is inexistant,contact with outside cuisine also ,areas with very traditional agricultural values tend to eat what they've always eaten.I suppose in remote and rural parts of the U.K. it wouldn't be so much different.I think you would be very suprised to see what inroads foreign cuisines have made in Italian cooking especially over the last ten years.In fact the top three chefs at the moment in Italy are all of German origin, tempura has become a regular "italian" dish,  cous cous using north african spices is considered a "traditional" dish in south western Sicily..the list is very long..

theoretically it's supposed to be simple,in other words any product or service purchased with a cost superior to E.1.000. should be paid electronically ie. bancomat/pos -credit card or bank transfer or non transferable cheque ( with the name of the company or receiver written in) avoiding that the "sale" can be occulted and not declared.

We'll have to wait for some of the" finer"details once they passed down thru the official gazzette( once it's passed parliament) down to the old commercialista..to find out exactly what and how much more they want for this...whatever it won't be easy..

yes, it will be very hard.The old I.C.I. tax will re appear as I.M.U. but this will be recalculated as much as + 60% on the basis of the new "estimi catastali" (the land registry calculation of value) and,it appears will be for ALL "first homes" including those previously exempt such as  registered agricutural homes/properties.Whilst direct taxation is not supposed to increase the additional quota which is at the discretion of the single regions can increase from 0,9% to a max of 1.23% the regions can /may increase the cost of petrol/diesel with an extra cent per litre to fund public transport too.VAT will increase from 31/12/12 from 10%> 12% ( for the special low rate) and from 21>23% on everything else!that is high...as far as pensions are concerned it's going to end up more or less as a work till you die scenario! (i'll be 70 to go onto pension!)..  

it's because IF one is driving an Italian registered car one has to have the certificate (mot) of revisione in the car with you.IF you don't/or it is not up to date then the car can be immediately sequestered...it happened to me...one is not allowed to proceed any further..if they're not feeling too nasty they MAY give you a paper to allow you to go straight home (if nearby) but you can't use the car until it's all sorted out (plus the fine of course)....

yes, because ( and not only in italy but also in germany) there have been so many blocked roads due to foreign cars and lorries without chains or snow tyres causing the problem...the only difference being with foreign cars they'll take the fine on the spot rather than posting it.

 hi mike,always suprised at the variety of routes people take.we always go thru belgium -germany-austria-italy coming down thru verona bologna.The advantage of germany is that for most of the time you can really push (on the accelerator which is GREAT) the other thing is that if you want/need to stop you can come off almost anywhere as being without tolls german autobahns have lots more exits and entries and it's easy to find comfortable inexpensive accomodation and food everywhere.At the end of the day this route ends up being even cheaper and no longer if you're coming down the east side of italy and you miss french speed traps,swiss speed traps,switzerland where they seem to have problems with people who have stuff in their cars/vans,vignettes and tunnel tolls.BTW if it's convenient for your timing the sea food in Oostende is fantastic at this time of year...