Adventures In Italian Wi-Fi: Tips For Getting Online In Italy And Beyond

by Dave Seminara on

It’s 45 degrees outside with a light rain and 40 mph winds and my wife is sitting in a doorway, huddled by her computer, teeth chattering, using a sketchy Wi-Fi signal a block from the Adriatic Sea in Polignano-A-Mare, Italy. My fingers are already numb from typing in the biting cold for two hours before she assumed command of our makeshift office, located right underneath a modem.

If you have the luxury of disconnecting from work while traveling and all you need to do is send and receive the occasional email, you’ll be just fine in Italy. But if you’re like us, and have to work while there and need a good, relatively fast Internet connection, you’re probably in for some of the same adventures we encountered.

Over the course of a five-week trip, mostly in small to medium sized cities all over Italy, staying in hotels and vacation rental apartments, we spent countless hours trying to make the most of tepid or non-existent connections. In unseasonably chilly Polignano-A-Mare, we realized the only true hotspot we had access to was in the doorway of the reception area for an apartment we rented; in Spoleto we had to sit literally in our windowsill to get a connection; in Parma I had to set up shop right on the front desk of the hotel; and in Lecce, we used an outdoor courtyard behind our apartment. What follows are some of the lessons we learned trying to get online in Italy.

Before you book a hotel or apartment rental, make your Internet needs abundantly clear. Many establishments offer what they call “Wi-Fi” but all they have is one modem somewhere in or near their establishment to service a number of rooms or apartments. Their “Wi-Fi” will allow you to check email but little else. When searching for places, make it very clear that you’re on a business trip – even if you aren’t – and tell them you need a place with consistent Wi-Fi.

Plenty of places will claim their Wi-Fi is just fine but some will be honest and tell you it’s fairly useless. I had one hotel manager in Parma respond to my inquiry about high-speed Internet with the following bluntly honest comment: “High-speed Internet?” he wrote. “There is no such thing in Italy.” I didn’t book with him, but I appreciated his honesty.

Don’t unpack until you check the signal. If Wi-Fi is important to you, check it in a few different spots in your room or apartment before you unpack. Speed varies wildly from one room to the next depending on the distance from the modem, thickness of the walls and other variables. Old, thick walls are a problem everywhere in Italy. Ask for a different room or apartment and see if the connection is better there.

If you’re traveling outside of the high season and think you’ll be spoiled for choice where you’re going, you might consider testing connections in person before committing to a place. But note that just because it’s working at the moment you try it, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll work in ten minutes, two days or a week later. My normal M.O. if I’m staying in a place for more than a week is to book the first night or two in a hotel, then relocate to a rental apartment. It’s one thing to be disconnected for a day or two, but quite another to have no access for a week or more.

When I went out to look for apartments, I’d bring my laptop with me and test the connection. In a few cases, I ended up renting apartments with sketchy Internet anyway, because there were no better options, but at least I knew what I was getting into.

Accept that there is no magic stick that works all over the country. I did a lot of research on this topic and tried a few sticks in different parts of Italy to no avail. I wish I could tell you to buy a stick from TIM or WIND or one of the other providers you’ll see at mobile phone shops all over the country, but the truth is that these sticks aren’t any better than finding random Wi-Fi connections in cafés, hotels and other hotspots.

There is also no way to tell you which sticks work best in which parts of the country, unfortunately. One stick might work in one place, but right across the street it’ll have no signal. What I can tell you is that most mobile phone shops will allow you to experiment with these sticks, and if they don’t work, you can bring them back. I tried them a couple times in different places and had no luck at all, but your luck might be different depending on where you are. Some shops will rent them on a daily basis for as little as 4 euros per day – which, if they work, is a bargain. Give them the address you’ll be staying at, and ask them which one works best in that area.

Move about the cabin. This probably goes without saying, but it’s especially true in Italy. Grab your laptop or mobile device and just move around with it, you’ll be amazed how the signal can improve just by moving a few feet.

Hope your laptop battery is good. I spent a ton of time using Wi-Fi outdoors, away from power outlets in Italy. If you have an older battery that has lost a lot of its mojo, this might be an issue for you. If you don’t want to get a new one, consider bringing a long extension cord – it might come in handy for you.

Bring your own Ethernet cable. I stayed in lots of different places, but none offered cables. Your speed will improve dramatically if you can plug into a modem. Obviously, this isn’t always going to be possible, depending on the setup, but in some cases it is. Bring a long cord because you never know what the situation will be.

Wi-Fi awards. I stayed in lots of different places all over the country but encountered just two places that had commendable Internet connections. Three cheers for the beautiful, brand new Santa Croce hotel in Lecce, and the Residence Perugia Chocolate in Perugia.

Don’t forget your sense of humor. You’ll find all kinds of businesses offering Wi-Fi in Italy, but very few have unsecured connections. Ask them for their password and keep track of which establishment has the most ridiculous one. I don’t know why, but nearly everyone in Italy has an absurdly long, complex password. I had a wine bar in Spoleto hand me a Wi-Fi password that had more than 30 characters! I didn’t bother using it, but I had a good laugh.

[Photo and video by Dave Seminara]

Encountering Monet At The Musee d’Orsay

by Don George on

Reading Gadling’s marvelous Museum Month posts has reminded me of a trip I made two decades ago to Paris. I had fallen in love with that exhilarating city in the mid-1970s, when I lived there for two successive summers, first after my junior year in college and then after graduation. I returned in 1988 to celebrate the city, and as part of that celebration, I wanted to write an essay about the poignancy and power of the artworks I had discovered at the Louvre, the Musee Rodin, the Musee de Cluny, the Petit Palais, the Musee d’Orsay, and many other museums and galleries.

First I thought I would write about all the showplaces for art that I liked in Paris, but I quickly realized that I couldn’t possibly do justice to so many places in a compact piece. I had to focus. I considered describing my favorite three museums, then just one museum, then three rooms in that museum, then three favorite pieces of art there. But though I narrowed my focus more and more, every one of these subjects still seemed too broad.

Finally I decided to focus on one painting in one museum, my favorite painting in all of Paris. I installed myself near that painting for about an hour, and scribbled in my journal. I have that journal before me now. Here’s what I wrote.I have been looking at Monet’s “Les coquelicots,” the painting of two women and children walking through a field of bright red poppies on a sunny, cloud-dappled day, for about 40 minutes. It moves me just as profoundly now as it did when I was last in Paris 12 years ago; it still tugs deep within me, cuts through all the layers to something fresh and fundamental and childlike.

At first I stared at it closely, my nose within a foot of the canvas, so close that I could see the black-dot eyes of the child in the foreground – something I had never seen before, or at least never remembered seeing.

Get that close and you reduce the painting to its elements: layers of oil paint on canvas, brush strokes, dabs, tiny tip-tips with the brush. You realize just how fragile a thing a painting is, and just how common. And you realize too that it was made by a man – fragile, common – who stood at the canvas and thought: “a little more red here,” dab, dab; “a cloud there,” push, push; “how can I capture that light?”

Look at the painting closely this way for a few minutes and you break it down into an intricate complexity of colors and textures and forms.

Then step back and – voila! – all of a sudden it is a composed whole, a painting: a cloud-bright sky and poppy-bright field, a woman with a fancy hat and a parasol and a child almost hidden by the tall grasses in the foreground, and in the background another woman and a child almost obscured against a distant stand of trees. They are on a walk, or a picnic – a story begins to compose itself, to take on a life inside and outside the canvas.

And you realize that this is a kind of miracle, that colors and shapes dabbed on a piece of cloth 115 years ago have somehow reached across time and culture to touch you.

Look long enough and feel deeply enough, and your eyes fill with tears.

And when you feel these wet, cool, unexpected tears, you look around you suddenly as if waking from a dream, and see men and women in shorts, blue jeans, dresses and sportcoats, holding guidebooks and pointing at the canvas and sighing, or whispering in passionate appreciation.

You feel strangely displaced – for a moment it was your painting, or rather, you were a part of it, and now you are outside it again – but then you think, “This too is part of the miracle, that one painting can touch so many people.”

You think of art’s extraordinary power, that a scattering of people and poppies in a field can push age, despair, fatigue and cynicism away, can focus you so intensely on this time, this place; that time, that place.
You stand close to the canvas again and see the complexity of colors – the fields all gray, brown, green, yellow-green; the poppies red and pink; the sky a mixture of light and dark blues; the clouds gray, purple, white.

You see that the forms are simple: a gently rolling landscape; smoothly, sparingly suggested people. And that the child in the foreground holds flowers that are almost the same color as the band in his (her?) hat.
You step back one last time and see peace, lightness, a sense of infinite wonder and potential, a childlike purity.

And when you return to the luminous streets you know you will hold that vision in your head, like a handful of flowers on a country-bright day.

You know that you have returned to Paris. You know that, deep inside, you were never away.

[flickr image via biscarotte]

Svalbard: The World’s Northernmost Inhabited Place*

by Alex Robertson Textor on

For bragging rights, few places can match the Norwegian Arctic territory of Svalbard. It’s far north. Really, really far north. How far, you ask? The northernmost piece of Alaska is at a latitude of 71 degrees north; Longyearbyen, the capital of Svalbard, can be found at 78 degrees north.

After years, possibly decades of looking at Svalbard on maps, pricing flights, and perusing websites, I finally visited the territory in late April. I felt as if I was shooting into the unknown, despite my advance research and my knowledge of the territory’s tourist infrastructure. I felt a bolt of uncertainty as the plane landed, in a snowstorm no less, and then a sense of wonder as I spied enormous mountains. It was more beautiful than I’d imagined, and far quieter. The silence was a constant presence. Even the abrasive sound of a snowmobile didn’t really disturb it, not for more than a few seconds.

Administered by Norway since 1925, Svalbard has around 2,500 residents. Most live in Longyearbyen, a little valley town with a cultural and retail infrastructure typical of far larger towns: a mall, a well-stocked supermarket, an Arctic Museum, a cultural center, hotels, restaurants and bars. During my visit in late April, all were pretty lively, tourists more rare than residents.

Though a Norwegian territory, Svalbard does not belong to Norway proper. Before boarding flights from Oslo or Tromsø–and after disembarking on return to the mainland–passengers have to go through passport control. The territory is governed under the terms of the Svalbard Treaty, which allows citizens of all signatory nations to commercially exploit the land and waters around and take employment in the territory. This explains the existence of Russian mining towns in Svalbard – Pyramiden (closed in 1998) and Barentsburg, which had 380 inhabitants at last count.

As befits a place commercially open to the world, Svalbard is a rather diverse place. While most residents are Norwegian, the territory is impressively international, with tourists adding to the linguistic melee. During a short midday stroll in the center of town, I heard Norwegian, Swedish, Tagalog, Swiss German, German, English, Thai, Portuguese, French, Flemish and Polish.

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During my visit, I used the world’s northernmost ATM and had a coffee at Fruene Kaffe & Vinbar, a café that bills itself as the world’s northernmost coffeehouse. I saw a handbill advertising a forthcoming Thai restaurant, which will surely be the northernmost restaurant of its kind in the world. I bought a magazine and a hot dog at the world’s northernmost convenience store. And then I sort of lost count of northernmost claims or projections. Almost everything in the territory, with the exception of snowmobiles, scientists, polar bears, and the odd research camp, is the most northerly example of its kind on earth.

What is there to do in Svalbard? The adventurous have many choices. There are all sorts of extreme skiing and mountaineering tours on offer for those interested in heading off into the wilderness with an expedition leader, gear, rifles (as protection against polar bears) and other necessities.

Many tourists overnight in Longyearbyen and take exploratory day trips. The most popular winter day tours include dogsledding, snowmobile journeys to Barentsburg (eight hours) or the east coast of Spitsbergen (ten hours), glacier hiking, and ice caving. During the summer, there are glacier hiking tours, fossil hunting trips, dogsledding (on wheels) and journeys by boat along the coast.

For the less adventurous, there is an informative two-hour taxi tour, and there is the Arctic Museum, a truly fantastic resource, devoted to Svalbard and the wider Arctic region. The museum addresses climate change, the flora and fauna of the region, the impact of human activity on the territory, and various implications of technology. Its library is wide-ranging and multilingual, with books on a huge number of Arctic topics.

*There are in fact a few inhabited places farther north than Ny-Ålesund, the northernmost settlement on Svalbard, though none of these are towns. These are Russian meteorological stations on Sredny Island and in Franz Josef Land; a Danish military base in northeastern Greenland; Alert, a Canadian military and science station; and Barneo, a seasonal Russian ice camp housed on the Arctic Ocean ice sheet.

[Images: Alex Robertson Textor]

Get Ready For The Olympics With Andaz’s World Food Marathon

by Jessica Festa on

While the Olympic Games are associated with international sports, Andaz Liverpool Street in London will be focusing on international food during the weeks leading up to the big event.

The five-star luxury hotel will be looking to staff members of its four Andaz restaurants – 1901, Catch, Eastway and Miyako – to help create the menu. Pulling from the 40 different nationalities that represent the Andaz Liverpool Street team, 26 unique cultural dishes were created. This number isn’t random, as it embodies the 26 miles in a marathon. The tasty festival will run from July 2 to July 27, the 26 days leading up to the Olympic Opening Ceremony.

Some of the dishes attendees can expect include Korean Spicy Pork, Polish Golabki, Slovakian sheep’s cheese dumplings, Colombian bandeja paisa and South African Bobotie.

“With all eyes on London this year as the 2012 Olympic season gathers momentum, Andaz Liverpool Street wanted to pay tribute to the multicultural base of the city with a variety of dishes from around the world, which celebrate different cultures, allowing our guests to take a journey of the culinary kind through what we have called the World Food Marathon,” says Arnaud de Saint Exupéry, the Andaz Liverpool Street General Manager.

The 10 Words Travelers Hate To Hear In Italy

by Dave Seminara on

We were standing on a train platform in Ancona, Italy, waiting for a train, when my 4-year-old son, Leo, made a surprisingly prescient comment.

“I hope our train’s not ritardo,” he said, using the Italian word for delayed, which he’s heard many times on our trip.

Leo knows only four words in Italian but it occurred to me that two of them- ritardo and chiuso (closed) are two of the dreaded words that travelers in Italy become all too familiar with if they spend enough time in the country. Here are some of the others.

Chiuso. I’ll say up front that I’m an Italian-American who is extremely fond of Italy and the Italians but even the most ardent Italy-backer has to admit that the arbitrary and capricious opening hours in museums, shops and restaurants can be maddening. For an American used to supreme convenience, things seem to be chiuso more than they’re aperto. One could cite thousands of examples, but here is just one I noticed in Parma: the museum attached to the Church of St. Constantine is open from 9:30 until 11 a.m., and then again from 3:30 to 5 p.m.La Pausa. Italy’s siesta can be a real hassle for travelers, especially if you’re making day trips and have no choice but to arrive in a place smack in the middle of the day, when the entire place is shut down. What I find most annoying is how varied the mid-day break is from one town and one business to the next. I’ve found places that are open for lunch that close promptly at 1 p.m., others that stay open the whole day and some that advertise one set of hours but change on a dime if the mood strikes. Shops might reopen at 4, or it could be 5, or some get back in gear as late at 6:30. Your guess is as good as mine.

Sciopero. (Strike) Yes indeed, the Italians know how to strike. They’ll strike if someone suggests that perhaps it isn’t quite right for them to have 18 weeks of paid vacation, 22 weeks of sick leave and 59 public holidays per year; they’ll strike if their quota of espresso breaks is reduced from 11 to 9 each day; and they’ll strike if the price of gelato is increased in their workplace cafeteria.

The only certainty in Italy is that at any given time, someone, or perhaps almost everyone, will be on strike. A month ago, we encountered two strikes in one day – once in Savona, when striking port workers blocked our bus from exiting a parking lot and again later in the day, when we encountered a rail strike in Milan.

Coperto. Most restaurants and many cafés that offer tables charge a coperto or cover charge that is usually about 1-2 euros per person. I’ve noticed that most restaurants charge my 4-year-old son the coperto, but only some charge my 2-year-old. One audacious restaurateur in Perugia charged us the coperto for my younger son even though he remained asleep on my lap throughout the meal and didn’t eat. (I balked and he agreed to remove the charge.) As Americans, we’re used to tipping 15-20% but in Italy, if you want to stick to a budget, you need to get used to tipping less, depending on the size of the coperto, and the quality of the service.

Aspetta. (Wait) Italy isn’t a great country for the impatient. In the U.S. we use the term “run” errands, but here you don’t “run” errands, you crawl through them on your hands and knees. The only Italians who seem to be in a hurry are those you find behind the wheel of a car or moped, speeding at you as you try to cross a street.

Burocrazia. (Bureaucracy) If you want a good example of how not to streamline what should be a routine procedure, try mailing a package home from Italy. I’ve done this twice recently, once from Perugia and once from Lecce, and I swear putting a man on the moon was less complicated. Aside from the myriad forms to fill out, and the dizzying array of questions you have to answer, you also need a passport (no your driver’s license will not suffice).

People often say that the U.S. is a police state. Really? In the U.S. you can vote without even showing any photo I.D. whatsoever, but in Italy, you can’t even use a computer without a passport. A couple weeks ago in Lecce, I went to an Internet café and asked them to scan a document for me but was told they needed my passport.

“But I’m not even using the computer,” I protested.

But it didn’t matter; they wanted my passport. I asked why and got the classic Italian shrug of the shoulders from an African immigrant who was assimilating into Italian culture seamlessly.

Brutto Tempo. (Ugly/Nasty weather) The Italians love to use the word “brutto,” which means ugly but is used more liberally than in English. When you encounter brutto tempo in Italy, you’ll be assured that the inclement weather is very unusual and that it was beautiful just before you arrived and will very likely be great as soon as you leave.

Supplemento. (Supplement) Italy has a bewildering array of train services, ranging from lightning fast to exceedingly slow and if you aren’t careful, you’ll buy the wrong ticket and be assessed a supplemento on the train.

Stranieri. (Foreigner) If you hear someone referring to you as a stranieri, there’s not necessarily a cause for alarm but be on your guard because you might get overcharged. Italian restaurateurs are famous for adding items onto bills, so ask for a ricevuta dettagliata to make sure you’re not getting hosed.

Other Italian words you don’t want to be familiar with:

Rotto- broken
Imposibile- impossible
Finito- finished/it’s done/ there is none left
Torno fra 5 minuti- will return in 5 minutes (or perhaps tomorrow)
C’è Coda- a long line
Non c’è posto- sold out/there is no place
Occupato- reserved/taken
Riservato- reserved
Munirsi di biglietto prima- pay for your coffee/snack/etc first and come back with the receipt to get your item.
Marco da bollo- dreaded revenue stamps, which are needed to secure official documents.
Pieno/ Esaurito- sold out

[Photos via Alex Scarcella on Flickr and Pietro Ferrari]