Good Evening.

Well folks…I made it to Italy. I left France at 7.15pm on Wednesday evening and travelled through the night. I made it to the Swiss border shortly after 1.30am after driving approximately 400km…this just left 325 to go. I had to buy the Swiss toll road sticker that costs 30 Euros per vehicle and as I have the trailer this meant two had to be purchased! It is obviously dependent on the number of wheels on the ground!!

At around 4am and after covering another 240km I pulled into a service station for a short nap. I had already stopped for two coffee/dog stops, but the eyelids were starting to suffer and I knew sleep was a wise decision. At 6.30am I was off again and my first port of call was a town called Lecco. It is from here that I intended on buying my license for fishing, my boat permit, and an internet stick to get the all important internet access. After driving around for half an hour with my trailer I could not find a parking space anywhere in the town centre! I had forgotten how manic the town traffic can be and also how few vacant parking spaces there are! It seemed everyone was doing there Christmas shopping and before long the stress levels started to creep in, combined with the long drive and lack of sleep!! Leaving a boat parked up with a fabric cover on it is not advisable in any town in the world because of the obvious security implications and that was my other major concern. It was time to resort to my master plan.

I have a new contact in Italy called Indyline. Indyline manufacture braid and other textile components used for fishing. Through my WCC contacts they have kindly agreed to supply me with mainline braid and a few other braided components. It is a great benefit to me and it also means I already have a new temporary base that I can use in between sessions. I therefore called Matteo at Indyline and he gave me the full address of their warehouses close to Milan. I was invited to leave my trailer in their yard for the day, meaning driving round a busy town centre looking for a suitable parking place would be easier. It was, and in no time I had parked the van, walked the dogs quickly, and then made my way to the local provincial office to pick up a three-month vacational permit for the Lombardy region. This slip of paper then has to be taken to a post office to pay for it. It is then stamped and you retain one half. That was job number one done and it was already midday! Second stop was a totally separate shop for a boat permit. This has to be bought in conjunction with your fishing license number and both are therefore linked for bailiff checks. This is to stop people using one permit between their group of friends! Now a six month boat permit costs 120 Euros for the lake I intend on fishing. Unfortunately though the six month period covers July till December only. I tried to explain to the lady that six months should begin from the day I purchased it but she was adamant that I would have to return on Jan 1st to buy another six months worth. As you can probably imagine I am not going to bother with one till January as I am not paying 120 Euros for a twelve day boat permit (brings a new meaning to the twelve days of Christmas!) and I will use the boat without a permit till I buy next years six month ticket. It does make me laugh a little as you are not allowed to fish for carp in May and June in this region of Italy, so technically that means the six month license from Jan till June will only actually be worth four months anyway…it seems you can’t win really!!

With the boat permit ignored for the time being (I still have last year’s one which I will show the bailiff if they pay me a visit to prove I do normally buy one) I then made my way to a mobile communication shop to see if I could sort out an internet stick and also to get a new sim card for my phone. I always buy a sim card in every country as it means to receive incoming calls is free. If I received a call using my French sim card in Italy I would also pay for part of the call. The sim for my phone was purchased and I then got a pretty good deal on a TIM 3G internet stick. The deal was 59 Euros for the stick/key and then 10 Euros a month for 100 hours internet use. This equates to about three hours a day which is ample. I thought it was quite a good deal for around 20 Euros a month including the key. Armed with my new goodies I returned to my van and headed back to Indyline for a meeting with the Boss and Matteo who is in charge of the carp fishing products under the name of Indyline. With the meeting wrapped up and now totally exhausted from the last 36 hours I was keen to try my new internet stick. Would you believe it, it did not work!

This is now my main hurdle to overcome before I can start fishing and I am not writing this blog on the bank unfortunately – I am sat in an office, in a warehouse, in Villasanta near Milan, and this is where I am staying till I get the internet solution solved. I am connected to the companies high-speed connection and it seems there may be a problem with my laptop or the internet stick itself. It is a bit frustrating as it is snowing outside and I would actually love to be set up by the side of a lake with the rods out, the gas fire on, the dogs on their bed, and a view of a beautiful lake. The blog is very important to me and without the blog I feel lost and I would also feel that I am letting my readers down a little after you have waited so long for me to get to Italy. I could just say sod the blog and begin fishing, but then I would never get the chance to get the internet stick sorted as I would be unable to leave my equipment set up on the bank, whilst I nip to the shop. It is a tricky situation but very kindly Indyline have suggested me and the dogs stay in their warehouse until the problem is resolved. Tomorrow morning I will be up early and off to another mobile shop to try out different internet keys – it is possible the key I have is faulty. Then we will work around what we discover and try to work out a solution. The last blog I wrote was in France and that was using my French internet stick with no problems whatsoever so it is a strange situation and rather annoying!

Anyway…the main thing is I am in Italy…I will soon be fishing….expect lots of snow in the pictures…and maybe even a snowman!!

Cheers

Jake and the dogs