Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Italy - Home to Six Thousand Ghost Towns

Yah, count 'em, six thousand.  Another fifteen thousand towns have lost ninety percent of their populations.  Causes are varied but a great deal is out-migration looking for better work elsewhere.  (CNN:  6,000 ghost towns: Italy's answer to migrant crisis?)

A good many of the ghost towns are in the boot of Italy (i.e. Mafia country).  Whether that's a significant reason not to do it is unclear but I doubt it.  Mafia was well-known in Greece as well.

The same is true for ghost towns in Spain, probably Portugal as well, and I strongly suspect also in Greece.  All of these places are a long way from Germany and there isn't an easy way to get there.  From Greece, you can either go North through Slavic countries and then west to Germany or take a ferry to Italy and cross the Alps from there.

Trains are plentiful but it will take some study to find trains-for-cheap as cheap is not what I found when I wanted to get to Edinburgh.  Flights are extremely cheap but I wasn't finding that for trains.  I'm a novice on train searching as there must be better prices but that will take some more education on them.

Cat said it's possible to get a decent car for about 400-500 euros and that has two huge advantages:  I can sleep in it and the kit will be minimal so it will easily fit in the trunk.  The scooter cost about a thousand euros but this was Greece so maybe it's best to get something somewhere else ... or not at all.  No telling how this part works or if it's even necessary.


Must talk to Cadillac Man as these are just ideas going out in the dark.  I've got to solve the iMac problem and I think it goes to the end of the week.  If it's not running by then or there isn't one hell of a strong lead on producing a fix then go back to Mavericks on the week-end and post it for sale.  I can't do another month of this.

Windows is a waste of time from start to finish.  It's Apple or nothing.

No comments: