Reminders from Rome and Italy: Rome, Etruscans, Crime, Cutting, Pollution, Police, and Perugia in Umbria

Italy is one of the top ten countries visited by the British and holiday-makers worldwide. So the Italians have been busy promoting at the World Travel Market in London. Rome is pushing for more upmarket customers, especially visitors on conferences, to stay longer than the average two-day stay, because conference goers stay longer, five days average, and spend more.

More Police
Rome is planning to introduce special police to cut down on crime. That's important. For years I avoided Spain and Italy because of my experiences there.

Cutting Crime
Another initiative is to remove one cause of Crime, immigrants who have no jobs and turn to crime as they have no other income. The move is to get employment for immigrants instead of taking the opposite approach which is leaving them unemployed or cording them to give up work.

I have always thought that forcing people to be unemployed (in the UK) is daft. Either send them home or give them work.

Cutting Polution and Traffic James
A second initiative is to cut down coaches or buses polluting and creating traffic jams. The increased charges on buses and coaches entering the city did not please a spokesman for buses, who told me that in many parts of the UK and presumably also Italy as many as five times as many visitors arrive by bus or coach, as arrive by air.

Tourist Tax on Coaches
In response the representative of Rome told us that they were not intending to cut out bus and coach travel entirely, just to regulate it. The changes planned are not only with the tax increase from the current 9 euros on each bus entering the city going up to 25. (If I've got the figures right. If you know otherwise please tell me. I don't think the exact figures matter, just the fact that it's a big increase to deter the buses as well as making money for the city.)

Pedestrian
The other moves coming to Rome include more pedestrian-friendly areas.  How will the pedestrians get around from the coach parks? Some shuttle buses, electric or environmentally friendly, are also in the plans or pipelines.

Rome and Exciting Etruscans
Rome has Etruscan ruins. I'd never understood who the Etruscans were nor cared about them until I went to Perugia and saw the giant cliffside gateway which is the entrance to the city. Looks like tunnelling into the cliffside, but huge! The Etruscans are the natives who fought the encroaching Romans. Either the Roman were more ruthless or better organized or both. Anyway, modern Rome also has underground catacombs, like Paris, as well as Etruscan remains. More on the Etruscans in my next post.

Umbria and its Capital City Perugia
Just a reminder about Umbria and one of my favourite cities, Perugia. The links are
 @UmbriaTourism and #loveUmbria

More updates on Umbria shortly. See my previous posts on Perugia.

Etruscan gateway in Perugia. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Websites and links:
 @UmbriaTourism and #loveUmbria
See my other travel website:
www.luxurytravelforless.co.uk

Author
Angela Lansbury
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Underwear Confidence For Long Journeys And Leaking

Problems
Forms of Transport:
TRAINS; PLANES; COACHES
There are line ups for the toilets on trains, long-distance coaches, coach stops, railway stations, aircraft.
MOTORWAYS
On a motorway you could be stuck in a traffic jam as long as seven hours.
WALKING, HIKING, CLIMBING, CAMPING
When hiking or even on a walking trail, you might not see a toilet, and going to the toilet outdoors might invite attacks by dogs or bears.
Camping in a tent whether on flat land or up a mountain on Everest and other mountains, you may not wish to go out into the dark and cold, even if you have a separate toilet tent.

Physical And Mental Conditions:
If you are pregnant, elderly, have a medical condition or weak bladder, had too much coffee or too much alcohol, you might need a toilet before you can reach one.
Stress incontinence from coughing and sneezing and laughing.
Unpredictable periods (menstruation).
Heavy periods.
Bladder or muscles weakened by pregnancy, youth, age, medical condition or unidentifable factors.
Foreign food upsets your stomach.
Fear gives you the runs.

Answers
You can buy a plastic child's potty with or without a lid, a commode chair to take or send to a second home or holiday home, buy devices for men and women to keep in the car, or improvise
1 Double thickness underwear. Two pairs or thongs under granny knickers.
2 Panty liners.
3 Waterproof and / or water absorbent underclothes.

Current (2017) Offers
1 UK
Morrisons supermarket sent me a special offer of a free packet of 10 Always Discreet and discount coupons for related products. If you pay the full price they cost 74 p.

2 INTERNATIONAL
Facebook is carrying ads for ICON panties, from a website headed Thinx. When I clicked on the page I found dozens of reviews about the various merits of the company's products, the different sizes, which shape of figures different styles suited. They discussed Thinx, ICON Panties and Poise Pantiliners.

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Holidays From Hell - Stories For You To Tell in Traffic Jams

Problem
What do you do when you are stuck in a traffic jam or stranded on a plane runway for hours?

Answer
Tell stories of other holidays from hell.

Stories
My Travel Disaster Stories
Fire Alarms
In Scotland at the Achiltibuie hotel, a fire alarm went off in the middle of breakfast. We all had to abandon our buffet breakfast and go down the steps onto a terrace lawn. We could hear the fire engine blaring up the steep hill to the top of the hill where our huge hotel commanded a great view. The chefs were also evacuated, standing on the terrace in a group with their white hats. Also evacuated, a bride and groom - the bride in a long while - night-dress.

Flood
At Swanwick Writer's Holiday in Derbyshire, one year the site was flooded after heavy rain. The accommodation blocks were separate from the main blocks with classes and evening entertainment and the lounge and bar. Going back your feet were up to their ankles in muddy water and frogs were jumping about.

In Germany our car was broken into in Koln (Cologne).

Another car was broken into in Prague.

A third in the zoo car park in Madrid - after a group had mugged us in Marbella stealing my leather handbag and contents.

I was stuck in mid-air on a three person chairlift in a ski resort in the USA.

Worst of all, in Corsica I was on a bus which broke down on the way to the airport to go home. We were all closing the road from the broken down bus when a car came over the brow of the hill and knocked me down. 1984. I had multiple injuries including ribs broken in two places, a broken collar bone, a cracked shoulder blade, a head injury which left me bleeding from my ear, with everything spinning around more than 100 times when I tired to sit up. I ended up in a hospital in Corsica where they did not even speak French, my only other language, but Italian dialect. I tried talking to the woman in the next bed fro a day. She said nothing. Eventually I asked somebody to translate. He explained that she could not talk because she had had an operation on her jaw.

Theft
Singapore - my shoulder bag was stolen, containing a British passport, a Singapore citizens card, money, my new UK iPhone and my Singapore handphone.

Here are some fearsome photos from the internet in the Daily Mail online newspaper. My favourite is the frogs in the toilet. But that was after a flood.

Tips
If you like to convince the family or friends that your problems are not as bad as you thought, print out a copy of one of these photos, keep it concealed, then bring it out as a distraction. When your car breaks down, you can look at the picture of the elephant straddled across a mini car.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-4283256/Hair-raising-capture-travel-scenarios-gone-wrong.html

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Chinese New Year, What to Eat, Where to Go, What to Know, Where to Avoid

Problems
Chinese New Year, so much to see and do? What can you eat, say and do?

Answers
1 Red packets.
2 Pineapple tarts.
3 Chinese New Year Cards or emails.
4 New Year holiday flights and queues.
5 Zodiac Signs.
6 Year of the Rooster.
7 New year weekends and traffic jams.
8 Visits to families.
9 Lo Hei
10 Bak wah.
11 First across the threshold in shops.
12 Pairs of oranges.
13 Toastmasters Table Topics (impromptu speeches).
14 Q and A/ FAQ: What are you doing for CNY?
15 Lion dances.
16 Check club and business meeting changes.
17 UK Tax returns end of January.
18 Learn how to say or reciprocate when wished 'Happy new year, and to recognise the sign on banners in hotels, shopping, malls:
Gong Chi Fa Choy. (Roughly gong she far, choy) depending on whether the well wishers are speakers of Mandarin, Cantonese or H o c k i e n or another dialect.

Details
1 Red packets.
You get red envelopes free from banks, fast food outlets and shops, or you can buy them from stationers. Unmarried relatives are given money (ideally in lucky numbers such as 8 or multiples of eights, not four which is unlucky because it sounds like death). The Mandarin name for these gifts is h o n g b a o. (I have inserted spaces to prevent autocorrect changing the word.)

2 Pineapple tarts.
You can buy these in see through squat jars with screw top bright red lucky colour lids.

3 Chinese New Year Cards or emails.
Find sets in newsagents, like all cards, cheaper the day after.

4 New Year holiday flights and queues.
Book early. Flights are likely to be full over the New Year as people fly home to China, Taiwan, Singapore, or from China, Taiwan and Singapore to their birthplace. Also employees given a long weekend off, even if not celebrating Chinese New Year, will be taking flights.

5 Zodiac Signs:
Rat, tiger, dragon, horse, ox, rabbit, snake, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig.

6 Year of the Rooster.
See red roosters in advertisements and on banners.

7 New year weekends and traffic jams.

8 Visits to families.
Some friends and colleagues will be busy visiting their families.

9 Lo Hei.
Delicious mix of vegetables in rainbow colours, often with smoked salmon added for protein. Watch out that nobody adds shellfish later if you are allergic - get your portion before the shellfish is added.

10 Bak wah.
Preserved pork. Delightful favour, I am told, with sweet as well as savoury. Long queues for customers.

11 First across the threshold in shops.
You might get a bargain if you go into shops early in the day.

12 Pairs of oranges.
Shopkeepers and friends are likely to give you a pair of oranges. Surprisingly they don't have to be new and gorgeous but could be old and tired looking fruit. You return the compliment a few hours or days later.

13 Toastmasters Table Topics (impromptu speeches).
At a Toastmasters Club meeting before Chinese New Year the Toastmaster of the Evening is likely to open a meeting by going clockwise around the room asking each person to say their name, where they are from, and how they will be celebrating Chinese New Year.

14 Q and A/ FAQ:
Anybody from an acquaintance to a lose friend is likely to ask: What are you doing for CNY?

15 Lion dances.
Noisy. Hard to take photos because they jump about so ask them to stand still for a photo after the lion dance. You will see trucks carrying groups of men and the costume, making a noise in the street. Performances may take places outside or inside restaurants and shopping malls.

16 CNY celebrations and cancellations.
Check club and business meeting changes.

17 UK Tax returns end of January.
Many UK people, pensioners (retirees), accountants and business owners will be too busy to do anything except finalise their tax returns.

Stories
An American lady went to a lo hei and her designer top was splashed. She was very upset and claimed compensation.
Possible remedies:
1 Warn guests to wear washable clothes.
2 Warn guests with vulnerable clothes to stand away.
3 Issue plastic aprons with advertising goodwill messages.

Tips
Advise visitors.
Wear washable clothes.
Wear a washable scarf to cover clothes.
Carry tissues or wet wipes.
Know your Chinese birth sign.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.