René's old blog

René's old blog

Whatever I feel like posting, whenever

This site goes back some twenty-five years, so it is bound to be full of stale links and irrelevant information. It is, at best, updated irregularly.

  • 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,…

  • 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…

  • 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,…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • I’m in Palermo now. I spent a couple of days in Fertilia, first to make up my mind, then to figure out what to do with all the gear I had there. The first night I slept in the open…

  • As mentioned previously, I have had some problems with my Telecom Italia Mobile prepaid mobile phone account. It ran out of money, I put in €50 and was told my account was still at €0. My assumption was that the…

  • I have a TIM sim card in my mobile phone here in Italy. It’s a pre-paid card, so I have to ‘recharge’ it regularly. I did that today. I bought a €50 card, scratch the field to get the number,…

  • I have the dubious pleasure of using a Vodafone Wi-Fi hots at the Jolly Hotel at Cagliari. It must be the lousiest hotspot I have ever used. I am consistently thrown off every few minutes and association attempts fail three…

  • I have decided stop my journey around Sardinia here in Fertilia. My primary reason for embarking on this trip was to recover from a depression I had after a marital crisis last year. I wanted to get away from everything,…