DAY 155 - MALFALCONE TO SAN GIORGIO DE NOGARO: 21.36 MILES (42,720 STEPS)

24 September, 2011

21.36 miles (Total: 1489.2 miles) 42,720 steps (Total: 3,291, 201 steps)

The walk from Trieste to Montefalcone along the coast was spectacularly beautiful and the weather was warm, but cooled by a pleasant sea breeze.  Moving inland at Malfalcone the temperatures increased and the cooling breeze decreased.  To compound the challenges of the day, what should have been a relatively straight forward walking day of around 18 miles took a frustrating turn.  I arrived at what I expected to be a new bridge across the river and railway line at Cervigona del Friuli, only to discover that it was not yet complete and so I need to re-trace my steps for a couple of miles to a bridging point. Such mistakes and wrong turns are mercifully few and far between, but when they do happen they do sap the will to live as invariably they happen at the hottest point of the day and the rucksack seems to weigh an extra 20 pounds as you go back.

As I ordered three scoops of ice cream and an iced-tea in a cafe in Trieste and was handed a bill for 11.6 euro, I began to see that accommodation and living costs are going to become one of the major challenges of my journey though Italy. My skills at negotiating down room-rates have been developed to a very high level during my 154 days on the road, but there is a crucial factor in being able to do so—there must be a surplus of supply and a shortage of demand. When the primary question becomes have you got a room then your ability to haggle is greatly diminished, other than appealing to their generosity after describing the purpose of the journey. During my first four nights in Italy, the average room cost has jumped from 30 euro to 60 euro. I arrived in San Giordani during a festival weekend (Ambiene In Fiesta) and I could only find one hotel with a room at 65 euro, but my mind was opened to a new way of keeping the costs down in Italy as the owner asked ‘Do you pay cash?’, ‘Yes I replied’; “Do you need a receipt?” “No” I replied—“50 euro”.

At the festival, which was a jolly affair not least for the fact that the wine was 1 euro a glass and a small bottle of mineral water being 1.5 euro, I met up with some great young people, Matteo, Valentina and Luis who had travelled in from a neighbouring village. Matteo, who spoke excellent English, helped me order a plate of fries with extra salt from the barbeque stand, for which I splashed out and bought him a glass of wine. He had worked in England, in Preston, for an Italian restaurant, but returned to Italy because of the poor pay—we worked out that he had been paid substantially less than the statutory minimum wage, a common occurrence I was told for mobile labour in the hospitality industry. The weather was another factor – even I, as a committed northerner, recognised that the climate of Preston lacked something when compared to the Italian Riviera. I mentioned to him my story of the hotel and he laughed and said, “That is Italy—cash is the currency and the mafia is the government”. This was an interesting observation because it would go to explain why my first impressions are that the country looks and feels prosperous and expensive and yet it is supposed to be in crisis. The truth is perhaps that the elected government are in a crisis, but the ‘real’ economy is not fully controlled by the elected government and so life goes on and does so surprisingly well.

As I lay in my discounted bed, I reflected on the day and I was reminded of a classic scene from one of my favourite movies, ‘The Third Man’, in which here is a scene, not in the original screenplay of Graham Greene, but added later by Orson Welles, when Harry Lime eventually meets Holly Martins on the Great Wheel in post-war Vienna: “In Italy for thirty years under the Borgais they had murder, warfare and strife. Yet they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had five hundred years of peace and tranquillity. They had democracy and brotherly love, and what did that bring us? The cuckoo clock!”

Viva Italia!