I travelled via Belgium last week and decided to stay overnight at Dinant, where I have stayed previously and found to be marginally less bad than most towns in Belgium.To anyone contemplating a similar stop - don't.The whole of the town is being
At La Dolce Vita exhibition at Olympia this year I bought a jar of garlic cloves preserved in a pizzaiola type oil and vinegar mixture.It is just amazing for snacking, the whole cloves are really crunchy with a fairly mild flavour of the garlic an
I need to buy a tyre for my car. I googled all the usual words but came up with nothing. Back in UK I would simply go to Kwikfit, or ATS etc and it would be done on the spot.
Does anybody have a contact for a sun blind maker?Think of a conventional, rather old-fashioned roller blind with the roller fixed at the top of the window and the blind hanging vertically down.
My view is - "If you live in a condominium you must try to moderate your noise so as not to disturb other people".My noisy neighbour's attitude is - "If you live in a condominium, you must expect it to be noisy".Which view is right? - probably the view voiced by the majority of occupants. Both views are valid, in a way.However, one difficulty lies in getting people to voice their view, particularly as noisy people tend to be both vociferous and intimidating, while quiet people are often the opposite.He told me to go and live in the mountains. Nice....
Let me first say I don't really know, and you should seek current expert advice.As I understand it, any gains you have made worldwide are taxable in Italy. But your principal residence is exempt, so if the house you sold in UK was your principal residence at any time, any gains during that period should be exempt. In all likelihood, this will have been prior to your becoming resident in Italy.You should not be liable for any gains made before you became resident in Italy. It's possible therefore, that you will be due to pay tax on any gains made from the day you became a resident in Italy, up to the date of sale of the property. The amount of gain would be the difference in property value between those two dates. It would be up to you to get a formal market value for the date you became resident.Like I said, some indicators only - mainly because nobody else answered!TK
I'm guessing that if you have an A Level then the likes of Michel Thomas would be of limited use - I think there is an advanced version but the basic course is very basic - which makes it OK for me of course.
It seems there is a real 'Catch 22' conundrum Wholeheartedly agree. There's no logical reason why the DVLA shouldn't accept revisione in order to tax your car.It gets worse - I recently brought my UK reg lhd Panda back to UK for MoT and it failed because the foglight is on the wrong side. We had to have a separate foglight added in order to pass. However, for MoT it needs to be wired up to the existing foglight switch so as to get the telltale light on the dash - which means that the correct (for Italy) foglight can't work.Similarly, the headlights need converters to shine UK fashion, which makes the car much less ideal for Italy. Given that I only use it in Europe, the conversion to UK spec is just silly.All of which makes me wonder whether I should just go for a UK spec rhd car and be totally out of kilter, just to avoid the hassle.TK
The only problem with this route is that the roads to/from the tunnel, [[the roads here aren't that good], are just as likely to be affected by the 'bad weather' that worried 'tonys'Maybe it's a while since you went that way - the N59 is a very good road at both ends of the tunnel. You don't have to take the minor roads into Colmar itself as the route out to the motorway is only a little more in kms, but less in time.I think the charm of this area is that there are so many options - one time I chose to go via the tunnel, it happened to be shut for maintenance - the diversion gave me a different route over the top which made a nice change from the usual Col du Bonhomme route.
It doesn't surprise me as I've always thought it a bargain considering the number of times per year I pass through Switzerland.You have to bear in mind that the Mont Blanc tunnel costs the same as the present vignette for only one return trip and the Austrian route would probably work out much more expensive for multiple trips.They probably need the extra money to pay for all those armed guards at the border - checking your vignette.
There are companies that do supply new LHD cars, like this one;- http://www.1stcarimports.co.uk/That is the company I used for the present car. They act as an agency, sourcing pre-registered 0km cars from Europe. Mine came from a car supermarket - Cardoen in Antwerp. They used a car import firm to do the paperwork and I picked the car up from Antwerp.It worked well, but you still end up with needing an MoT for a European spec car and the testers are being made to be much more rigorous about lights and instruments.I guess if I do replace it, I'll just go RHD and put up with the difficult overtaking.
Without being au fait in absolute detail, I do of course intend to book my MoT in advance and it will be in my home village, some 110 miles from Dover. If I can find the garage that did it last year, that is, as my local village is being torn apart and gentrified (hah!) so the garage has had to move out.It still isn't easy though, the local (large) Fiat agency refused to give it its first MoT last year as it is LHD and they couldn't get their heads round it, even though I told them to just do any work that was needed to pass it.My original intention was to replace the car every 3 years but that's hassle too, as UK dealerships tell me they can't supply an LHD model because of the European spec for lights and instruments. So it seems the bureaucracy is forcing me to have a RHD car for driving in Italy instead of the safer LHD option.Hey ho.
I'm guessing that if you had an accident and the insurance company wanted to get arsey about it, they could claim that the vehicle has not been proven roadworthy etc etc so there could be an element of risk with a UK insurance company.My Italy car is SORN at the moment because its MoT has run out and they won't let me tax it without. I'm not ready to take it to UK for a month or two so I guess it's not legal at present, as I believe you have to have a current tax disc?But I almost always drive here so I have my UK car with me and use that instead.
Comments posted
My view is - "If you live in a condominium you must try to moderate your noise so as not to disturb other people".My noisy neighbour's attitude is - "If you live in a condominium, you must expect it to be noisy".Which view is right? - probably the view voiced by the majority of occupants. Both views are valid, in a way.However, one difficulty lies in getting people to voice their view, particularly as noisy people tend to be both vociferous and intimidating, while quiet people are often the opposite.He told me to go and live in the mountains. Nice....
Let me first say I don't really know, and you should seek current expert advice.As I understand it, any gains you have made worldwide are taxable in Italy. But your principal residence is exempt, so if the house you sold in UK was your principal residence at any time, any gains during that period should be exempt. In all likelihood, this will have been prior to your becoming resident in Italy.You should not be liable for any gains made before you became resident in Italy. It's possible therefore, that you will be due to pay tax on any gains made from the day you became a resident in Italy, up to the date of sale of the property. The amount of gain would be the difference in property value between those two dates. It would be up to you to get a formal market value for the date you became resident.Like I said, some indicators only - mainly because nobody else answered!TK
I'm guessing that if you have an A Level then the likes of Michel Thomas would be of limited use - I think there is an advanced version but the basic course is very basic - which makes it OK for me of course
.
It seems there is a real 'Catch 22' conundrum Wholeheartedly agree. There's no logical reason why the DVLA shouldn't accept revisione in order to tax your car.It gets worse - I recently brought my UK reg lhd Panda back to UK for MoT and it failed because the foglight is on the wrong side. We had to have a separate foglight added in order to pass. However, for MoT it needs to be wired up to the existing foglight switch so as to get the telltale light on the dash - which means that the correct (for Italy) foglight can't work.Similarly, the headlights need converters to shine UK fashion, which makes the car much less ideal for Italy. Given that I only use it in Europe, the conversion to UK spec is just silly.All of which makes me wonder whether I should just go for a UK spec rhd car and be totally out of kilter, just to avoid the hassle.TK
The only problem with this route is that the roads to/from the tunnel, [[the roads here aren't that good], are just as likely to be affected by the 'bad weather' that worried 'tonys'Maybe it's a while since you went that way - the N59 is a very good road at both ends of the tunnel. You don't have to take the minor roads into Colmar itself as the route out to the motorway is only a little more in kms, but less in time.I think the charm of this area is that there are so many options - one time I chose to go via the tunnel, it happened to be shut for maintenance - the diversion gave me a different route over the top which made a nice change from the usual Col du Bonhomme route.
Or go via the Colmar tunnel instead of over the col. Not toll-free but it's cheap and gets you out near St Die and on to the good road to Nancy.
It doesn't surprise me as I've always thought it a bargain considering the number of times per year I pass through Switzerland.You have to bear in mind that the Mont Blanc tunnel costs the same as the present vignette for only one return trip and the Austrian route would probably work out much more expensive for multiple trips.They probably need the extra money to pay for all those armed guards at the border - checking your vignette.
There are companies that do supply new LHD cars, like this one;- http://www.1stcarimports.co.uk/That is the company I used for the present car. They act as an agency, sourcing pre-registered 0km cars from Europe. Mine came from a car supermarket - Cardoen in Antwerp. They used a car import firm to do the paperwork and I picked the car up from Antwerp.It worked well, but you still end up with needing an MoT for a European spec car and the testers are being made to be much more rigorous about lights and instruments.I guess if I do replace it, I'll just go RHD and put up with the difficult overtaking.
Without being au fait in absolute detail, I do of course intend to book my MoT in advance and it will be in my home village, some 110 miles from Dover. If I can find the garage that did it last year, that is, as my local village is being torn apart and gentrified (hah!) so the garage has had to move out.It still isn't easy though, the local (large) Fiat agency refused to give it its first MoT last year as it is LHD and they couldn't get their heads round it, even though I told them to just do any work that was needed to pass it.My original intention was to replace the car every 3 years but that's hassle too, as UK dealerships tell me they can't supply an LHD model because of the European spec for lights and instruments. So it seems the bureaucracy is forcing me to have a RHD car for driving in Italy instead of the safer LHD option.Hey ho.
I'm guessing that if you had an accident and the insurance company wanted to get arsey about it, they could claim that the vehicle has not been proven roadworthy etc etc so there could be an element of risk with a UK insurance company.My Italy car is SORN at the moment because its MoT has run out and they won't let me tax it without. I'm not ready to take it to UK for a month or two so I guess it's not legal at present, as I believe you have to have a current tax disc?But I almost always drive here so I have my UK car with me and use that instead.