Italians .. what are they like

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Italy is famous for having several types of police forces, the Carabiniery, the Polizei di Strada and the Polizei di Commune, not counting the Police Finanzia who are something to do with Customs I think.  The Polizei di Commune are like our community police officers, and hang around like dissolute teenagers in dodgy looking Fiats, smoking and scratching themselves.  They are armed with whistles that they use as frequently as a referee at an old firm game.  They offer no constructive advice or even take the trouble to make any indication as to which transgressor has provoked this censure.  Confusion reigns, at any given place in Italy where there are more than 10 Italians in one place there will be several instances of law breaking occurring at all times.

We’ve worked out why the roads are so neglected, if it rains roads get covered in debris, or fallen trees or get washed away themselves.  All road workers are then diverted to sorting the mess out and long term remedial work stops.  The motorway between Pizzo and the airport has a section where the second carriageway was never built.  A hundred yard section where there is no tarmac no foundation and no embankment, whilst half a mile away there is this 4 lane flyover, that flies over nothing and is not contiguous with the nearby back road.  Maybe it was built in the wrong place?

It was stormy on Sunday so we stayed around town, not many other folk had ventured out.

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This is the Church up the road, and had a skull and cross bones in a glass box out the front.

The next 2 days were sunny but freezin’.  Went to Serra San Bruno, a windswept mountain village, a bit like Tow Law, so high up that the first thing you notice about the place is how tidy it is.  The reason is the wind has blown anything that’s not nailed down into the North Sea, or the Adriatic in this case.  More interesting was Soriano, we came across the ruined abbey, not the Carpathians this time, an earthquake apparently.  This picture neatly demonstrates another factor of Italian life, the instinct that seems to prevail to build towns balanced precariously on the most inhospitable crag available.

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Today was mardi gras, so all the Pizzoan kids were allowed to dress up and chuck stuff at each other, eggs, confetti, party foam, water etc.  The smaller ones did “turns” on the temporary stage.  This shows the turn of the mini mouses, who danced and sang along to some manic polka, whilst freezing winds from the sea cut them in half.

It was cold, but it was clear, the best view of Stromboli we’ve had so far.