Italian Musings

Understanding Italy
The following websites are ones I found purely by accident during my last week and have some very useful information within.  The phrases PDF is particularly good in the Understanding Italy site.

http://www.understandingitaly.com/index.html

http://www.italyheaven.co.uk/

Other Interesting Things
The following are some interesting things we took note of during our stay:

• You can buy alcohol anywhere.  While waiting for Lorraine at the Vatican I bought a stubbie at the gift shop right outside the entrance.
• Cafes are also bars which also serve food, its a very casual thing.  Evening meals are well after 7pm and from what we can tell people bar hop.  A drink here, antipasta at the next one, a meal elsewhere, then maybe dessert somewhere else.  You go to bed late, sleep late and everything opens later.
• When you buy alcoholic drinks at a cafe/bar you get either a complimentary bowl of popcorn, chips, or peanuts to go with it.
• In Milan, you see colorful dresses and suits in the shop windows, but people invariably are still dressing in greys and blacks.  Though you do occasionally see a peacock around strutting their stuff.
• Houses and gardens are amusing, you will see the most amazing gardens, well kept flower beds and window boxes, but the building is in a total state of disrepair.  Every available space of dirt has something flourishing.
• Bidets are in almost every decent hotel room, but not in public facilities.  If you haven't used a bidet yet, your bum has missed out.
• Be prepared to pay for public toilets, best option is to go to a Cafe/Bar, and have a drink, then go to the toilet.  At least you get a drink for your money spent as well as a toilet break.  The toilets are usually very clean in these establishments.
• If you can find a space and you are not blocking anything, you can invariably park something in it, car, scooter, motorbike, bicycle, truck, bus.  Double parking is normal while people do things, you just drive around them, preferably not using indicators.
• Speed cameras are well identified everywhere, if you get a speeding ticket you are simply not paying attention.  Its quite normal and seemingly acceptable to speed, just slow down for the cameras.
• Generally from what we noticed, the police will not bother you unless you are doing something really stupid, whether that be in a motor vehicle, as a pedestrian, or on a bike.  Behave in a respectful manner and you will be left alone.  Act like a dick and you will be singled out.  In over 2,000kms of driving I only saw two drivers pulled over.