Thought this might be of interest to anyone thinking of driving to Italy before the middle of December. Norfolkline (now part of DFDS) are offering a special fare on all Dover - Dunquerque sailings up to 15th December this year. Car plus 4 people
Have only just noticed that I should probably have put an introduction in first, but there we are. If all else fails, read the instructions... Glad to have found this site and joined the community. We have a small apartment in the city of Como a
Thanks very much, Steve. I have just accomplished what was looking like a seemingly impossible task. I went onto our online bank account, selected IMU, there was the form, I entered all the info I had obtained from the other site and pressed the INVIA button. I have printed out the receipt, but apparently it will be transferred by 15th June. Three days in hand! Wow - just made it!
We are resident in the UK but have an apartment in Italy and when we were there the other week I had expected to find a bill for the IMU, in the way that the council tax bill arrives without fail every year over here. However, there was nothing, so I starting to look into it and had a slight panic attack last week when I read in the local paper online that the deadline for submitting and paying your IMU tax is 18th June. Things got better when I found a very useful site for information and calculation of the IMU: http://www.altroconsumo.it/casa-energia/imposte-e-tasse/news/imu-quanto-dovrai-pagare You only need to know the rendita catastale to be able to use the calculation, and this was on our purchase documents. The site also shows you exactly what to put on the F24 form. I then went to the Agenzia Entrate site, only to find that whilst it is possible to pay online, it is not possible to pay by credit card (how helpful is that?). You can pay if you have an Italian current account at one of an enormous list of banks, but you have to register on the site and in order to do that, they will give you half your PIN number online and send the other half by post to your Italian address within 15 days...! So, I know how much we have to pay and we have a current account in Italy, but how do we pay the Agenzia Entrate? If we just do a bank transfer, what account do we send it to and how do we attach the completed F24 form? Or shall we just wait until a friend is going over to our apartment in early July and ask him to go to the Post Office and pay it in return for using our apartment for a week??? Any ideas, particularly those I can action in the next week, would be most gratefully received. I can't imagine we are the only ones in this situation. MONICA
Gosh, I've just spent about half an hour reading about how in Italy flour is classified based on the yield from milling! Here's a useful extract: "In Italy we classify flour by the extraction percentage: so you have wholewheat, then 2, then 1, then 0 and lastly 00, the more refined. This is what you would use for cakes, or pasta, but also fine bread and rolls. However, refining is one thing, proteins quite another, so there can be low gluten 00 and high gluten 00. The latter is what you would use for e.g. panettone and pandoro, that need a long fermentation times, while the former is what you would use for crostata and biscotti. If you want to be more precise, in Europe in general and in Italy in particular the thing to look for are the W and P/L ratios." Also, have a look at this link to the blog by the woman who wrote the above quote: http://eat-drink-man-woman-blog.blogspot.com/2008/06/we-are-addicted-to-white-stuff.html ...Or has that just confused us all further?!
My Panasonic breadmaker has an "Italian" option on the setting, which takes half an hour longer than the normal white setting. I've tried various recipes for Italian bread but I'm sorry to say the very best I've found is to buy a Wrights ciabatta breadmix in a little packet, like a mini bag of flour. It only needs water and olive oil added to it, but on that Italian setting it makes a really lovely light and airy ciabatta loaf. You mention the "heavy bread" you buy in Italy. Isn't it interesting how bread varies so much - how practically the same ingredients can be made to produce such a wide range of different regional breads? We go to Como in the north and all the bread in the shops seems to be light.
I made your recipe last weekend, roseitat, and produced 5 jars. It smells lovely and I shall definitely do as you suggest and use if as a bruschetta topping. I read somewhere the other day that chutney improves with keeping and loses the vinegary taste, so shall resist opening it until Christmas!
There is a great website by a man called Albano Marcarini called www.vasentiero.it. Marcarini has done a lot of guides and the ones we have bought have beautiful photos, watercolours of views and really detailed maps of the walks. They are lovely little publications and you can spend hours just reading and appreciating them! On his website, if you follow the menu link "Cerca nello zaino" and then click on the Le Marche region, you will get a list of walks and bike rides and who they are published by. I have to say, there are many more walks Marcarini has done in the north of Italy, most of which can be downloaded, but you will have to have a search through the site and see what you can find. I should also say, his walks are in Italian, but if you can't understand the words, the maps are so full of detail you could still do the walks. Hope this helps.
Last September we bought a chiavetta from Wind for, I think, 49 euros on a pay-as-you-go package. A re-charge costs 9 euros for unlimited use for one month. We didn't want a contract, or a monthly fee, we simply wanted to be able to be able to have internet access for the few weeks of the year that we are in our apartment, and it seems to work well. The boring bit was poring though all the brochures of all the packages from every available provider, before making a decision as to which one to go for...!
This may help: I've just found this information about the vignette: "Seit 1995 kostet die Autobahnvignette in der Schweiz 40 Franken. Der Preis in Euro ist abhängig vom Wechselkurs und beträgt für das Jahr 2010 27,50€ (seit 1. Juni 2010 29.00€, seit 1. Oktober 2010 31,50€)" which, if my German serves me correctly, means: "Since 1995 the Swiss motorway vignette has cost 40 francs. The price in euros depends on the rate of exchange and in 2010 amounted to 27.50 euros (from 1st June 2010 29.00 euros, from 1st October 2010 31.50 euros)" I think we'll carry on buying one at the petrol station north of Basle, as we've always done, and hope that the pound holds up against the Swiss franc ...
Which site did you buy yours from, Santamarinese? I was looking at the Swiss Travel Centre site, because Alan mentioned them at the very beginning of this exchange of comments. Thanks.
Comments posted
Thanks very much, Steve. I have just accomplished what was looking like a seemingly impossible task. I went onto our online bank account, selected IMU, there was the form, I entered all the info I had obtained from the other site and pressed the INVIA button. I have printed out the receipt, but apparently it will be transferred by 15th June. Three days in hand! Wow - just made it!
We are resident in the UK but have an apartment in Italy and when we were there the other week I had expected to find a bill for the IMU, in the way that the council tax bill arrives without fail every year over here. However, there was nothing, so I starting to look into it and had a slight panic attack last week when I read in the local paper online that the deadline for submitting and paying your IMU tax is 18th June. Things got better when I found a very useful site for information and calculation of the IMU: http://www.altroconsumo.it/casa-energia/imposte-e-tasse/news/imu-quanto-dovrai-pagare You only need to know the rendita catastale to be able to use the calculation, and this was on our purchase documents. The site also shows you exactly what to put on the F24 form. I then went to the Agenzia Entrate site, only to find that whilst it is possible to pay online, it is not possible to pay by credit card (how helpful is that?). You can pay if you have an Italian current account at one of an enormous list of banks, but you have to register on the site and in order to do that, they will give you half your PIN number online and send the other half by post to your Italian address within 15 days...! So, I know how much we have to pay and we have a current account in Italy, but how do we pay the Agenzia Entrate? If we just do a bank transfer, what account do we send it to and how do we attach the completed F24 form? Or shall we just wait until a friend is going over to our apartment in early July and ask him to go to the Post Office and pay it in return for using our apartment for a week??? Any ideas, particularly those I can action in the next week, would be most gratefully received. I can't imagine we are the only ones in this situation. MONICA
Gosh, I've just spent about half an hour reading about how in Italy flour is classified based on the yield from milling! Here's a useful extract: "In Italy we classify flour by the extraction percentage: so you have wholewheat, then 2, then 1, then 0 and lastly 00, the more refined. This is what you would use for cakes, or pasta, but also fine bread and rolls. However, refining is one thing, proteins quite another, so there can be low gluten 00 and high gluten 00. The latter is what you would use for e.g. panettone and pandoro, that need a long fermentation times, while the former is what you would use for crostata and biscotti. If you want to be more precise, in Europe in general and in Italy in particular the thing to look for are the W and P/L ratios." Also, have a look at this link to the blog by the woman who wrote the above quote: http://eat-drink-man-woman-blog.blogspot.com/2008/06/we-are-addicted-to-white-stuff.html ...Or has that just confused us all further?!
My Panasonic breadmaker has an "Italian" option on the setting, which takes half an hour longer than the normal white setting. I've tried various recipes for Italian bread but I'm sorry to say the very best I've found is to buy a Wrights ciabatta breadmix in a little packet, like a mini bag of flour. It only needs water and olive oil added to it, but on that Italian setting it makes a really lovely light and airy ciabatta loaf. You mention the "heavy bread" you buy in Italy. Isn't it interesting how bread varies so much - how practically the same ingredients can be made to produce such a wide range of different regional breads? We go to Como in the north and all the bread in the shops seems to be light.
I made your recipe last weekend, roseitat, and produced 5 jars. It smells lovely and I shall definitely do as you suggest and use if as a bruschetta topping. I read somewhere the other day that chutney improves with keeping and loses the vinegary taste, so shall resist opening it until Christmas!
There is a great website by a man called Albano Marcarini called www.vasentiero.it. Marcarini has done a lot of guides and the ones we have bought have beautiful photos, watercolours of views and really detailed maps of the walks. They are lovely little publications and you can spend hours just reading and appreciating them! On his website, if you follow the menu link "Cerca nello zaino" and then click on the Le Marche region, you will get a list of walks and bike rides and who they are published by. I have to say, there are many more walks Marcarini has done in the north of Italy, most of which can be downloaded, but you will have to have a search through the site and see what you can find. I should also say, his walks are in Italian, but if you can't understand the words, the maps are so full of detail you could still do the walks. Hope this helps.
Last September we bought a chiavetta from Wind for, I think, 49 euros on a pay-as-you-go package. A re-charge costs 9 euros for unlimited use for one month. We didn't want a contract, or a monthly fee, we simply wanted to be able to be able to have internet access for the few weeks of the year that we are in our apartment, and it seems to work well. The boring bit was poring though all the brochures of all the packages from every available provider, before making a decision as to which one to go for...!
Just read your post, Sprostini. This year's 11 vignette is definitely valid until the end of January 2012.
This may help: I've just found this information about the vignette: "Seit 1995 kostet die Autobahnvignette in der Schweiz 40 Franken. Der Preis in Euro ist abhängig vom Wechselkurs und beträgt für das Jahr 2010 27,50€ (seit 1. Juni 2010 29.00€, seit 1. Oktober 2010 31,50€)" which, if my German serves me correctly, means: "Since 1995 the Swiss motorway vignette has cost 40 francs. The price in euros depends on the rate of exchange and in 2010 amounted to 27.50 euros (from 1st June 2010 29.00 euros, from 1st October 2010 31.50 euros)" I think we'll carry on buying one at the petrol station north of Basle, as we've always done, and hope that the pound holds up against the Swiss franc ...
Which site did you buy yours from, Santamarinese? I was looking at the Swiss Travel Centre site, because Alan mentioned them at the very beginning of this exchange of comments. Thanks.