Penny's activity

France and Germany stand to take huge losses if Greece defaults - substantially more than any other country. It does smack of protectionism on their part. Will the Greek people stand for more cuts/austerity and being humiliated by the EU? I think a big risk is civil unrest in Greece. Remember it was a military junta just in the 80's. Surely for the Greeks it must be better to default, go back to the Drachma and start again. The thing I wonder is if this were to happen, would Italy be tempted to do the same? It would give them the ability to devalue the Lira again. This could take some of the pressure off their debt and mean they could continue not dealing with the problems in the Italian economy. It must be tempting to some politicians but of course they would not want to go first! I have to disagree with RAM that manufacturing is one of Italy's weaknesses. I think it is actually one of their strengths. Certainly Marche's economy is based on small, family-owned manufacturing companies and is not doing too badly for a recession. IMHO the major problems here are: 1. The tiny birthrate (not surprising given the fact maternity pay is not paid whilst you are on leave and the costs of anything for babies or children - at least 50%-100% dearer than in the UK). Italians are not even reproducing at replacement rate. 2. The ridiculous tax system that is so complicated and regimented (i.e. you can be an artigianale but that means you can't be a commerciante. In our case we could rent bikes (commerciante) but not charge to repair them (artigianale))! Who cares what you do so long as you pay your taxes and don't break the law? All these rules date back to the not too distant past when you had to have a licence to operate a business and only so many licences were granted for each 'trade'. Thankfully that was abolished. 3. Jobs are not awarded on merit but on the basis of who you know. This is a major problem. Italy's economy will never thrive whilst it is encouraging a brain drain of the most talented. 4. The short-term contract. Introduced to make the labour market more flexible (good thing) but now used by employers as a way of never giving a permanent contract. So few young people have a permanent contract. Without it they cannot get a mortgage so are completely stuck. Either the banks have to change their criteria (in my experiences with them highly unlikely) or this area really needs to be looked at. It has had probably unforseen damaging consequences. I don't believe that the structure of the economy (ie what is produced) has to fundamentally change but the working practices and priorities do. There is too much short-termism in Italian policies and politics. But then maybe that is a symptom of the generally short-term nature of Italian governments. Gala - do you think there is public support for Spain withdrawing from the Euro?

Just had a good look at Bunterbot's website - whooppeee! It's fab. Can order all map online too and they are not expensive. Just a shame we didn't find it when we were running a cycling business!!! The maps 'palstici' are great plastic profiled 3D maps. Hubbie now has his birthday pressies sorted for a while....

Bunterboy - what a great site. Thanks. I think it is the same maps I mentioned as Amandola is on the cusp. Have you bought any? How much were they - any idea? It does say they were drawn in 1951 (sigh) but it is the best we're likely to get! Andiamo - that's great. Thanks. And they are a lot cheaper than the ones I'd seen previously.

Great website but nothing for Marche as usual. I was told the best maps here are the ones ENEL have. There are some good ones (possibly military) that can be bought from the state map-maker in Florence. They don't have a website though. Unfortunately for Amandola we are on the cusp of 3 maps and they are very expensive (about €50 each) so I never bothered. They are very detailed but I'm not convinced they are very up to date. Oh for an OS map..........

Bunterboy - I'd love to know what military maps you found for Marche as I can't find any on that site.

I'm afraid the best maps of the Sibillinis (can't comment for the rest of Marche) were drawn (and I do mean drawn by hand - there are no digital maps) in the 1940's. There are a couple of good walking books but you would still need a map and the best one of the Sibillinis is produced by the National Park and last year went up from €7 to €12 which is pretty impressive inflation! You can buy it in any of the Park's houses if you can catch them open (spending cuts etc). Otherwise the tabacchi in Amandola sells them. The Grand Anello is the route that is best maintained in our experience.

Just in Ascoli Piceno health authority RAM. The rest of Marche seems unaffected.

Sprostoni, check with your internet provider that yo ucan plud a SKYPE phone into the router. Not all of them provide VOIP services or charge extra to let you.

There was an article in the papers about the new codice stradale and they said the police will be much stricter in enforcing the one year rule for foreign registered vehicles due to the high number of Eastern European workers who never re-register their vehicles.

I'll be honest, it is not going to affect us for much longer as we are moving to Liguria so my attendence is just to see things through - nalthough if nobody who is actually affected will be attending, there seems little point in my being there.