Those of you who have been following my posts know that, unlike most of you, my intention has not been to look for a place to settle down. My wife and I, since retirement, have wanted to explore the places that we just touched upon when we were younger and on limited vacations. We went to places and visited the tourist sites and did the tourist things but I was always more interested in what the people that lived there did. We are doing an extended sampling of life in those places. Since 2015, when we first packed our two suitcases and got rid of everything else, we have been in Palermo, Brittany and now Chianti. While we were in Palermo we took a 5 month road trip through western Europe staying for a week or four in various places as far north as the Netherlands. During our stays in various places I developed opinions about those places. Some of them strong opinions. Likes and dislikes, which I have written about before. So the question why Italy over France? Or the other ay around? I love both. For many reasons I prefer one over the other but each takes that role. But it is the negatives that are more important. Palermo is a beautiful city with an incredibly rich history full of people that have great pride in their home city. But those people, not all, are blind to the filth and chaos and animal abuse and third world traffic, which they are the cause of the above. And then there is the heat. Especially the heat. Brittany has fewer negatives. Minor negatives. The winter weather is mild but a bit damp and the summers are cool (which I do not consider a negative). The people are kind and friendly but my lack of ability to speak French makes interactions with the Bretons difficult. The French bureaucracy, as bad as the french say it is, is nothing compared to the Italian system, especially the Sicilian version, where the remnants of nepotism and favoritism are still lurking in the shadows. It is now Chianti's turn. Other than the common language and the common coffee culture, there is little common between Sicily and Tuscany. And there is little common between Brittany and Chianti. And that is the point of exploring. To find those differences and commonalties. I love the French food (farmers) markets. They know how to do it. Italy does not, or rather, they have different needs and their markets reflect that. French markets are all about the quality and variety of the freshest foods. The Italian markets are more focused on cheap clothing and home goods with the food part of the market taking a lesser role and the foods available at those stalls being not much better than what is available in stores. I miss the French markets although the larger, permanent markets, like the Central Market in Florence are decent. We are planning a year in Chianti. After that we don't know yet. We had planned on staying a full year in Saint Pierre Quiberon, Brittany, but the house we were renting had issues. Although it had beautiful views and it was 75 feet from the waters edge, it was a house on four floors with bathrooms on the first floor. My knees could not take anymore. The house, even though it was on four floors was actually too small for us. The house has a very small footprint. But other homes close to the water were just not available. They were either all owned by people who used them as vacation homes or they were only available seasonally at high costs. I was not interested in the interior of Brittany since it was very much like upstate New York where we came from. And my wife wanted to go back to Italy where she could at least understand some of the conversations. So there is a possibility, since Alice does speak some German, that next year it may be a German speaking country. Austria maybe. We'll see.

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Until recently if I used a UniCredit ATM with my US based ATM/Debit card, I was assessed a surcharge — maybe €2. These surcharges are still relatively rare here in Italy. I don’t ordinarily use this ATM but I was a block away trying to complete a transaction and unexpectedly needed €200. For convenience sake I was ready to pay the surcharge. However, no surcharge was disclosed. Instead I was notified of “today’s exchange rate”. I never saw this before and was initially confused. Eager to get back to my pending commercial transaction, I accepted the disclosure only to realize that UniCredit exchanged my €200 to USD at a markup of 3%. That €200 withdrawal cost me €6 — much more than a surcharge of €2. I wasn’t given an option to decline their money conversion trick. It was take it of leave it. So, let’s hope this isn’t a trend — identifying people using foreign cards upon whom to foist very unfavorable exchange rates at ATMs that ordinarily offer good rates of exchange. My US bank reverses ATM surcharges, but this wasn’t a surcharge. The transaction was delivered to my US bank in USD after UniCredit pocketed €6. It wasn’t much to pay for the learning experience, but I will be vigilant going forward. An aside: EBay plays the same game. Opt out of these money conversions. Let your ATM or credit card issuer convert the currency to dollars. It is nearly always the best consumer rate available to consumers.

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