A brand-new stamp about Le Marche

Last Thursday a new stamp showing Le Marche has been released.

Some monuments of Ascoli Piceno plus the bronze statues of Pergola, together with the shape of the region and its symbol (the woodpecker) compose the image on the stamp.

Shifting to Mac

Ten days ago I bought an Imac. It's been a hard choice, but very very thoughtful. I fell in love with this wonderful designed computer from the first time, then I read some book about it, then, finally, I bought it.

It is a real wonderful experience. He knows everything: which modem is this, which hard disk is this, what I'm about to do and so on. It's so easy to use that sometimes one may feel embarassed in finding some complicate choice as it is in the pc world.

Still some doubts, though, like the one-button mouse which seems to be a sort of "proud" feature, but useless.

Anyway, I expect this mac to wake me up, someday, asking me if I'd like some coffee... :-)

Here was the city and the cement, now there's a park

Ancona is a very special city, and I love Her.

One special thing it has, it's that is a landsliding and earthquake area, so everything must be built according to strict anti-sysmic criteria. Here, were the picture was built, one of the most meaningful stories of corruption took place. Here they built everything, in the 60s and in the 70s, the worst period for architecture in Italy. In this landsliding area there were 2 hospital, the university of Medicine, lot of houses. It was the area of Posatora and Borghetto.
On 12th december 1982, after two days of endless raining, everything fell down, so slowly that people could escape without damages, nor injuries or even victims. Eventually they could grab whatever they had, but their houses were destroyed, and they had to move somewhere else. For many people, that was a tragedy, although the municipality gave them some refund.

Now, after 24 years from that tragedy, there is no trace of building over there, instead there is a park, Belvedere Park, with an enchanting view to the port, the city centre and the coastline. This park, in the summer, is one of the meeting point of young Ancona people. Differently from other cities, where there were houses, now there's a park.

Found it!

Two years later, the police has found it.
Well done!

About the natural superiority of Greece on tourism

I've just come back from a tour in Greece. Nice place, nice islands, but in particular excellent services. Everywhere we went, we didn't have to worry about sleeping: hundreds people offering us a room, for about 40 Euro per night. The islands where we went were very nice (Santorini, Paros, Egina), or extremely awful (Mykonos, I'm still asking to myself why it is so advertised... it's a European Riccione, with better beaches, but worse weather, always windy).

What impressed me more, was the ease of having a room, renting a quad, purchasing a ferry ticket, understanding everything everywhere without speaking Greek. In Pantelleria, where I was in June, it was a nightmare renting a car, finding a room, paying with credit card, checking my email (in Greece, an Internet cafè everywhere) or simply planning my tour via the Internet. In Pantelleria, I was lucky to find Il Dammuso and Giovanni Matta, and my holiday there was like a dream. But everything else was like a nightmare: no signs, people hardly speaking Italian, no English at all, no gas stations but in the main town. Everything was set for the winter, not for the summer. Everything but the prices, which were very high, as (I thought) it's normal for an island.

While in Greece, I saw the opposite: prices are very low (half as Italy), for 2 weeks in Greece I spent a little bit more than 1 week in Pantelleria, with 3 nights in Athens, which is more expensive than the average of Greece. Sleeping in Greece costs half than Italy, every room has the air conditioning, everybody speaks English, shopping in the supermarket doesn't cost you a fortune.

Then, no doubt that the favourite tourist aims for Northern Europeans are Greece and Spain. For such a beautiful sea, assistance for tourists is much better. Italy has to acknowledge this and has to start working for improvement. Otherwise, the Colosseum, Pizza, Sole e Mandolino won't be enough any more.