December 18th, 2007, No Comments »
Via MetaEfficient, Verese is a town in northern Italy that gets all of its energy from renewable resources:
The town uses wind, solar and small-scale hydropower, a mix best adapted to its hilly terrain covering a total of 140 square km — and it has plans for more hydropower.
Today, renewables bring not only environmental benefits but also improved living standards to a town that had suffered from years of steady decline. An additional 350,000 euros [US $514,000] in tax revenues is handed over to the council each year by the private company that owns the renewable energy network.
I figured Verese was some little hamlet, but they’re actually a city of nearly 100,000 people. That’s pretty impressive.
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October 22nd, 2007, No Comments »
Julie just spent five days at Fontana Del Papa, a cooking school outside of Rome (booked via the excellent folks at Responsible Travel). That’s kind of an anti-holiday for me, but she had a great time. She took a bunch of photos, and here are three of my favourites:
She also spent a day in Rome, and some time in Barcelona and the south of France. I quite like this photo of seats awaiting Catholic bums in the Vatican.
It’s really a photo-bloggy kind of day today, isn’t it?
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September 13th, 2007, No Comments »
Two weeks ago, Julie and her Dad went to Sicily for about a week. She took a schwack of good photos. They went up to the top of Mount Etna just two days after it had erupted.
Here are three photos that Julie took at the top of the volcano. Fortunately, she made it down without being, you know, toasted by lava (apparently the Mt. Etna lava moves very slowly, anyhow).
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July 12th, 2007, 2 Comments »
I was just moaning about lousy customer service, so here’s a great example.
Julie recently booked a trip–an Italian cooking holiday–with Responsible Travel, “holidays that give the world a break”. They’re not really ‘package holidays’ in the traditional sense–mostly the company offers responsible alternatives for accommodation and activities. They’re a bit like Etsy in that you book directly with the service providers. Responsible Travel just points you in the right direction.
The booking process was straightforward and easy, but the great work happens in the email notification that Julie received. Once she books, check out the extras:
Send you a FREE Rough Guide of your choice from the list at www.roughguides.com.
Enter you in our draw to WIN A HOLIDAY. Our friends at Cwm Deiliog have offered a week’s stay at their Snowdonia self catering accommodation. See http://www.responsibletravel.com/rewards for full details.
Make a 1GBP donation to charity
Give you a discount on your travel insurance
Thanks to a Seth Godin anecdote, around Capulet we call this ‘greasing the bicycle chain’. Seth tells the story of a bicycle repair guy who’s pretty ordinary. However, the guy takes five minutes at the end of a job to do something unexpected, extra and free, such as greasing the chain or attaching some of those streamer-thingies (what are those called?) to a kid’s bike.
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May 22nd, 2007, 7 Comments »
On June 10, 1940, Italy declared war on Britain. On the following morning, Italian bombers attacked Malta (then a British colony). Lonely Planet Malta picks up our story:
The only aircraft available on the islands on June 11 were three Gloster Gladiator biplanes–quickly named Faith, Hope and Charity–whose pilots fought with such skill and tenacity that Italian pilots estimated the strength of the Maltese squadron to be in the region of 25 aircraft!
Did the Italians ever acquit themselves well during World War II? I only ever seem to hear about Italian defeats.
Anyway, the story of Malta during World War II is fascinating, and I’d love to read a book length account (the aforementioned Lonely Planet recommends Siege: Malta, 1940 - 1943) of that period.
If you think the London Blitz was bad news for the British, consider that in 1942 the island suffer ed154 days and nights of continuous bombing. That compares with 57 days at the height of the aerial attacks on London.
Though the island was constantly attacked for three years, they never surrendered, and provided a critical tactical advantage for the allies in the Mediterrenean.
As you may have guessed, I visited Malta’s National War Museum today. They still have the remains of Faith on display. You can see a photo on this site.
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