Air Show this weekend at Aeroporto La Comina, Pordenone.
Here is a link for the info in English on the air show.
We're Back! May 7, 2009
Sorry to have been gone for so long. I've updated information for the Summer 2009. Check out the Piancavallo and Sagra pages. I also plan to add a WiFi page soon. Enjoy!
Carnevale in Maniago this Sunday February 08, 2007
This Sunday Maniago is having a Carnevale celebration. Originally, the festivities were planned for last Sunday but were postponed a week due to rain. There will be a parade starting at 1330. Last year they used fields on the outskirts of town as parking lots and ran a free shuttle service into the town. I recommend you plan to get to Maniago no later than 1230 so you'll have time to use the shuttles and get to town in time to have a decent viewing location of the parade. Enjoy!
Skiing just got cheaper December 10, 2007
Last week I went up to the Piancavallo ticket office to purchase my season pass to take advantage of the discount they were offering. I went up expecting to pay 350 Euro's instead of 400 Euro's because I was purchasing the ticket prior to December 8th (click here for more information about the passes for sale). I was very surprised when the woman at the sales office asked not for 350 Euro's but 280 Euro's instead. I thought maybe she was giving me the wrong pass. She said nope the normal season pass that sells for 400 Euro's (without early purchase discount) sells for 280 Euros for all residents of the commune's of Aviano and Budoia. Finally, living in Marsure has paid off! I may not have ADSL access but I get 120 Euro's off a season pass. So if you live in any of the towns that belong to the communes of Aviano or Budoia you can take advantage of this too. Some of the towns under the commune of Aviano are: Castello di Aviano, Marsure, Giais, San Martino di Campagna, Piancavallo, Villotta, Beorchia, Costa, Ornedo, Pedemonte, Somprado, Selva. Some of the towns under the commune of Budoia are: Dardago, Santa Lucia, Val de Croda. I'm not 100% certain I've listed all the towns under the two communes but that covers at least the major ones. I believe, but I have not confirmed this as of yet, that all individuals residing in the dormitories are considered to be residents of the commune of Aviano and therefore should be eligible for the 280 Euro ski pass.
We've added a new page December 4, 2007
Today I've added more content to this free to use page for information in English on the Aviano area. I've just added a new page called Piancavallo. I've been meaning to do this since this past summer but just never got around to it. I figured with the onset of winter I should definitely get up some information about Piancavallo for all you winter sports fans. At the moment I've only put up some information about skiing (downhill and x-country), and tubing. Piancavallo also has a ice rink but I'll add that information later on. You can either click here or go to the top left corner of this page and click on the Piancavallo link. Hope the information I've put up helps you all get a bit more out of this winter. Enjoy!
An Update on the WiFi Update September 17, 2007
Well I've been running the WiFi for a little more than a month and I have little to complain about. The service seems to run well in bad weather ( I don't know how it works durning thunder storms as I turn off my computer to protect it from lightning strikes). I've tried a couple of speed checking web sites and I've always been near 512kbps. That said there have been occasional interruptions in my service from time to time. Still I've sent Telecom my request to have the ISDN service disconnected as I'm very happy with the WiFi service. However, there is one item which I need to address from my last posting about the WiFi service. I was given bad information by Baviera. The WiFi service DOES have a maximum bandwidth. I thought what I had purchased from Baviera was 256 Upload and 512 Download service. That is what the people at Baviera told me. It turns out they were mistaken. I believe it was unintentional and they have made a technical error with the information they were given. In reality the service I'm paying for is a 256 minimum bandwidth up to a maximum 512 bandwidth. This is still quite a bit better than Telecom's AWFUL ISDN service. Anyway, I think the money I've spent to get the service is well worth it. I hope if any of you decide to sign up for the WiFi service you are as please with it as I am.
WiFi Update July 30, 2007
Until recently there was a lack of access to high speed, affordable internet for many people in the Aviano area. When I first arrived here Telecom wasn't offering flat rate dial-up. It was pay by the minute for those without ADSL access and flat rate for those with ADSL. It would make me so mad when I thought about it. Here I was without the access to ADSL because Telecom wouldn't bring it to our town, Marsure, of a couple thousand people. To add insult to injury Telecom brought ADSL to Barcis a town of a couple hundred people. We looked into every avenue of internet to find some solution. Four years ago we were using a GPRS service (cell phone type internet) with a huge bandwidth of 28kbps on a weak signal. You can imagine how fast that was. We looked into other higher speed cell phone type services like GPRS-edge and UMTS but we were always just barely outside the service area. It was beginning to feel like a internet conspiracy against the people of Marsure. Then finally Telecom decided to offer flat rate dial-up to people who lived in area's where ADSL wasn't available. At that point we opted to get ISDN service from Telecom. Going from 28kbps to 128kbps was fantastic. That is when it actually worked and when you could actually connect with both 64kbps channels. Nothing is easy when dealing with Telecom. So, one day when I was enjoying some BBQ at an Italian friend's house I was told about WiFi service that was available here. At first I was doubtful it existed. I'd been disappointed before by people claiming WiFi was coming or was available. So admittedly I dragged my feet finding out about it. My wife thankfully was a little more pro-active. She found out that only certain companies could offer WiFi service legally and if you received your service from a non-authorized company you could be fined for not having a legal radio transmitter (WiFi transmits and receives data via radio frequencies). She went to the official Italian Ministry of Telecommunication's web site and found which companies were authorized to sell WiFi service in our area. Then she looked into the company, which was suggested to us at the BBQ, Baviera in Vigonovo. Baviera isn't listed at the ministry's web site. They are, however, partnered with a company Network Cable System (NCS) which is on the ministries web site. NCS deals mostly with providing large bandwidth services to businesses. NCS partnered with Baviera to offer lesser bandwidths, which are more affordable for private households. Baviera is a home electronics sales business that also does satellite TV installations. So doing WiFi antenna installations dovetails with the satellite installations. Your service provider is actually the company NCS. So about 4 weeks ago we went in and spoke with the Baviera salespeople who were courteous and helpful. They offer two services. The first is a guaranteed minimum 64kbps upload and 128kbps download. The other is a guaranteed minimum bandwidth of 128kbps upload and 256kbps download. We chose the 128/256. At first you might think the cost is a little expensive. You pay up front for 3 years of service. Our service with installation came to 2044 Euro's (not including interest). We put 84 Euro's down and financed 1960 Euro's. We will pay 83.40 Euro's per month for the next 24 months for a total of 1999.20 Euro's. To compare it to Telecoms cost if you take 1999.20 Euro plus the 84 Euro's and divide by 36 months (the actual total months of service) you are paying 57.87 Euro's per month. This includes the rental of the antenna, the router, the installation, and if something should go wrong with the antenna or router they'll replace it (spilling your favorite beverage on the router excluded). Remember that you aren't paying for a maximum bandwidth, like with Telecom, you are paying for a minimum bandwidth. This means you will never have less than the minimum guaranteed which to the best of my knowledge Telecom does not guarantee. Combine this WiFi service with a VOIP service like Skype means you no longer need Telecom to have a phone in your home. Skype and other US VOIP services offer US phone numbers. So you family and friends back home can call you for the cost of a local or US long distance phone call instead of paying international fees. Plus most people have Italian cell phones so you already have an Italian phone number for people over here to reach you with. Since my installation last week I've used a couple of free off the net speed checking services to find out what bandwidth I actually had. To date I've always been over 1Mb in download and once I registered a 2.8Mb in download. Your speed can flux depending on the number of people on the service at any given time. The really big deal about this service, as I understand it, is that you have either completely removed or at the least reduced the copper wiring and the switching networks your data flows on. This equates to faster flow of information. With Telecom there is the copper phone line from your home to your local switching network then to the Telecom server then a couple more servers then to the European network backbone between you and the server where the information you are trying to access is located. With this WiFi service as I understand it I go from my home to the antenna on the mountains via radio signal which is repeated to Udine and then to the European network backbone via the Czech Republic. So you've cut out the copper wire and are either on fiber optic or radio signal and you've cut out a couple of hops. The only negative I've ever heard of, apart from paying for 3 years up front (which isn't too bad), is the signal quality can be reduced by bad weather. The man who I met at the BBQ said that apart from a couple times last winter when it was snowing heavily in the mountains he's never seen a big slow down in service. Even then it was still working fine. During electrical storms you shouldn't have your computer on so you won't notice a signal reduction. Snow storms are likely the only weather events that you would notice a signal reduction. So far I've been very happy with my service. And I'm giving gold stars to the professionalism of sales staff, the proficiency and knowledge of the installation team, the technical help people, and the WiFi service of Baveira and NCS. You will find though that having some grasp of the Italian language will be necessary when dealing with them. They will try and work with you though. They do have some understanding of English. You can call Baviera at 0434 99141 or using Google Maps and type the following text from: Aviano Italy to: Via Giacomo Puccini 91 Vigonovo Italy into the "Search the map" area and you'll get directions from Aviano to the store. If you've visited Baviera or are a customer and would like to comment on anything in this article or the service email aviano@atlanticumbridge.com
Summers in Italy bring local Sagra's June 18, 2007
A Sagra is a small festival that the local communities hold to promote tourism to their area. Our site is creating a new page with information on Sagra's of the Fruili Venezia Guila region. If you find that we have missed one or two please email us at aviano@atlanticumbridge.com and let us know about it.