The last Saturday we went to Perugia, or better, in a huge amusement park on a hill facing Perugia. It is called “Città della Domenica” (Sunday City), one of oldest amusement parks in Italy. It seems a piece of the sixties in the 21th century. The name and the style of buildings and attractions are from my childhood times, a long time ago. And in these months this place is closed because now we aren’t in the right season, so it is empty. Have you ever watched “Life on Mars”? It is a similar situation. Well, it is still working on so dusts of time was not total.

We were there for “Magna Con Phersu” (Phersu Great Convention, but in Italian is something like “eat with Phersu”), a small convention about wargames and boardgames with a lot of tournaments. Small but heart felt. There were some lego games on sale, one game about bunga bunga, some demonstration tables. More on a following post.

The sad side of conventions and tournaments is that you see only the place of the event and nothing more. You can travel for hundreds of kilometres but after you can remind only the room where you stayed about that distant place. Here Perugia in the mist on the other side of the valley. A beautiful city, if you can visit it…

We are in the middle of Italy, among mountains. What means this navy war relict here? Fun for families? If you are a collector the space available in your home is never enough, so you have to place something at the workplace…

What they did to this Universal Carrier? Maybe it was used as an attraction for people, a tank to ride, so they customised it in this way. A honest war career throw on this hill. The engine is still inside but I think it is impossible to move it now. However no rust but grass grow on the floor.

Another carrier or artillery tractor, I can’t recognise it. Large tracks, so it is at least from the last years of the war.
At the end a huge reptilarium with a circular form, flags on the top and Maya decorations…

Something more from tournament in Canino.

Canino in Italian language is “little dog”. So this is the place with the monument to a little dog, the coat of arm of the municipality.

I saw this sign. It says that is prohibited the entrance of dogs in the area (a garden for children). It is weird that the sign has a barred dog that is practically the same dog of the coat of arm!

Saturday we slept here, with open windows for the heat, in the main place of the town. Just under there is a bar. In front there is the bell tower of the church with the Bonaparte’s chapel. Near a dance hall in the open for elder people that works until the 24.30. It is like to live inside a speaker box. Gigione on the stage sung “my heart is like a dancer and it make me suffer”…

Near Canino there is this castle with a 2100 years old bridge. It was the frontier between State of Church and Tuscany. Now inside there is a museum.

And near the castle there is Vulci, a ancient and great Etruscan (and after Roman) city. Or better those that remains of Vulci. A large flat plain under the sun with some walls and basements of buildings. Two hour to walk in the area where under our feet there was a great city. It is not dug by archaeologists because we cannot conserve it. A large part of gold from Etruscans it is from here. There are camps and horses (and a lot of flies!!!) but in the museums of the world there are jewels from here.

Last picture for a pre-tournament nocturne match: me versus Narciso, to remind the rules.

Thank you very much to all people involved in this event, and thanks to Narciso for his ospitality!

A new appointment on Monte Soratte. Inside this mountain there are the WWII bunkers of the Roma front, a little north from the city. They were dug at the start of the war by Italian Army and after they were used by Germans to defend themselves from the invaders. During the Cold War this was the site of the anti-nuclear refuge for the government. Nowadays a bunch of boys and girls from Sant’Oreste have thought to open this underground space to public.
I stayed here last year for the first opening. A year after I return, always with our Folgore paratroopers reneactment group. In the meantime some works went on and the structure is more easy to visit. A lot of people went from Roma. And a lot of reneactors were here to show their vehicles and arms.

This little girl was a perfect paratrooper ready to use this AA gun. Maybe a little small for the duty…
On the left, Sant’Oreste.

When Kesserling was here he used this type of German tractor to visit the troops. This one is full operative!

The lunch of champions… This is part of our group, there were Germans and Americans reneactors too. We voraciously ate bread and mortadella (or salame or prosciutto) with wafers as dessert, but… but… in Sant’Oreste there was a sagra on fettuccine (long pasta made with eggs) with wild asparaguses! We didn’t know it! Damn!

The entry of the bunkers for the organised visit. A volunteer guide show to this group the map of the underground section. Inside you are 200 metres under the mountain rocks. A lot of bunkers are all around this external part of the mountain, along a way with barracks (and a lot of dust). But there is another part developed more deeply inside. It is a huge space, full of bats, stalactites and debris. The only clean section is that with the secret Cold War bunkers, one is ready as building structures, the other one is frozen in time with iron bars that wait to arm concrete.

Inside is dark, very dark. We can see the ground only with lights from mobiles. I made some photos but my camera was not so sensible like my eyes. Here the light at the end of the tunnels. A one hour and half visit I think.

Some airplanes flighted on our heads (one of them only 10 metres over us, damn it!). A replicated Storch with German beam crosses show us as this great vehicle could remain almost motionless in the air. And a photoshop work can create a photo from the past.

Here the link to visit the site: www.bunkersoratte.it
Next appointment in September.

Londinium is a really great city. I love it! This is my 8th or 9th time that I visit it, and I want to come again and again. This is my report about the other things I did beside Salute together with my old chaps. And there is no Salute without a visit to London…

First thing to do in London: to see the latest miniatures painted by our guest Luca. It is late, but little soldiers are little soldiers!

This is Henry, but it is a female. It lives in the house and used to sleep between me and Narciso. I had only half bed because the other half was for Henry. It has very affectionate ways, a puss machine!

Next year will be the Olympic year. The clock in Trafalgar square.

Renzo Piano has the longest… skyscraper. The skyline has a new presence, you can always see it around London. Ready for 2012. The Belfast vessel and the Tower of London pier watch the development.

The heart of Little Italy, the church of St. Peter.

The memorial on the sink of Arandona Star, the ship with part of the Italians who lived in London, deported toward Canada in 1940.

Another ship, a reconstructed ship, with a freshwater sailor on it.

Even the Doctor visits Forbidden Planet shop.

A local delicatessen: a Dalek cake!

Real British food: gammon with eggs and chips.

British food again: fish and chips with peas.

From left to right: Luca (his left arm), me, Narciso, the right hand of Paolo with a pint of bitter, Paolo, Ornella (the back of his head).

Shop of Westminster Abbey. Maybe there will be a marry the 29th of April…

And in another shop there is a salute from the Queen.

28mm scale to show the construction of the underground. Museum of Transport.

The dock outside Canal Museum.

New London Architecture and a view on the development of the city. It is not a dead city like Rome, here there is a plan for the future realised in the present. London is a great city.

The fair is ended. Like all finished parties, the mood is a little bad. The other days the hotel was full of people and friends (and late night games were setted in the hall), this morning we are alone in the breakfast room. I see the desk and only 7 keys aren’t in position on 114 rooms. Mondays are always empty of holidays mood.

We want some souvenir of Modena’s food so we find a local supermarket and spent 150 euros in aceto, gnocchi fritti and other cholesterol sources.

On the road to home there is Bologna and the Museo Memoriale della Libertà (Memoir of Liberty Museum). It is a place with a private collection of vehicles like this Sherman (it is still in order) that you maybe watched in “La vita è bella” flick.
There is even a place with sequential rooms where was in action animated scenes about WWII in Bologna. Very suggestive and with real deactivated weapons.
The museum was closed but it opened for us. The guardian is a picturesque ex soldier of fortune of Algeria and Indochina wars. We woke him after a night shift…
More here

Near the museum there is Fabio and his headquarters.

I took some pictures in his office. Instead of the real work about software and pharmacology you can see little soldiers everywhere. And some previews about his TB Line. They are real photos, the office is invaded by these little things.

And here there is my viaduct, blocked. Too many things to do in these days. I told it goodbye, I will see you in the following months.

After this visit, Fabio offered us a heavy dinner on the hills around Bologna. I ate crescentine until my stomach permitted it. Thanks Fabio!

Five hours after I was at home, a little tired… next stop is for Agliana, next Sunday!