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Motorway day
I’m sitting in a very cheap hotel room, clean though, in Mestre. I’m here to pick up the stuff Wendy and I left here when we departed for Sardinia in September. Back them we expected to return on our way back north after a successful journey, but a capricious Fortuna wanted it otherwise. Tomorrow I…
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Dig and you will find
Whenever people put a shovel in the ground in Rome they’ll hit something ancient. It is not restricted to the centre of the city. Here in the surroundings of Grottaferrata, some 25 km outside Rome, the same thing happens too. Shortly before I arrived, a stretch of ancient Roman road was unearthed just a few…
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Mass upload to WordPress
I often make photo entries on my other non-technical blog, and it is such a pain having to upload photo after photo in two sizes. Yesterday I discovered the Upload Unzipper which implements uploads of zip-files which are then unpacked on the server and treated as individual uploads. Fantastic time saver.
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Comment spam
I just went through the comment moderation queue on this blog, and there were four (4) valid comments out of 385 comments. Spam is such a pain that I can’t even imagine how it would be without comment moderation activated.
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Lupercale
It was all over the news here in Italy last night. Apparently archaeologists in Rome have found the Lupercale on the Palatine hill. This is incredible news for anybody interested in ancient history. The Lupercale is legendary in more than one way. For the ancient Romans it was the cave under the Palatine hill where…
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Homeward bound
I’m on my way north now. I left Palermo Sunday evening with the ferry to Naples, from where I went by motorbike to Rome. The crossing was eventless, the ferry mostly empty. The ferry arrived in Naples early, around 6:30, and I was on the motorway before seven, as the sun rose over the Appenines.…
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A day in Palermo
A few days ago I went for a walk here in Palermo, and I took some photos along the way. The road was from Piazza Don Bosco towards Piazza Noce and back. A funny bending fence A nice calm sidewalk without parked cars This is where mafiosi shot down Cesare Terranova and his driver Lenin…
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Italian Commercial Neologisms
Italian shops are often called something ending in “-eria”. A bookshop is a libreria, from libro which means book. A pizzeria makes and sell pizze (plural of pizza), a gelateria sells gelato, icecream, and so on. An osteria sells hospitality, literally a “hostery” like in “host” 🙂 Since the scheme is very simple, it is…
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Mobile phones in Italy
I have understood from a previous post that Wendy travels without a mobile phone, and hence have limited internet access. Here is how you get a mobile phone with internet access in Italy. There are three mobile phone operators in Italy: TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile), Wind and Vodafone. TIM has a red/blue logo, Wind is…
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Team paddling experiences
The four weeks I paddled in Sardinia is the longest kayak journey I have been on so far, and the first time I have travelled for so long with somebody I knew so little. Things went very wrong between Wendy and I, and I have quite naturally given it quite a bit of thought as…
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Pentax Optio W30
I have bought a new camera, a Pentax Optio W30. I’ve been very happy with my W10, and frankly, I’m amazed it has survived the abuse I’ve put it through for as long as it did, so I have no problem getting another Pentax Optio. Compared to the Optio W10, the Optio W30 has a…
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My Pentax Optio W10 is no more
My camera is dead. It’s been a bit flaky for a while, the flash stopped working a while ago, and after my paddle with Francesco Ravasio on Friday it wouldn’t turn on anymore. I’ve tried everything, but no go. It’s been a good friend from some 1500km paddling in the last year or so, taking…