Trains and heat and fountains and such.

Looking for information about trains on the internet yesterday I came across the website of Vigotourism. Here is a small extract:

 "You can travel to Vigo by train from Madrid, Barcelona, Ourense, Pontevedra, Santiago, A Coruña, Ponferrada, León, Bilbao, Alicante and Porto. If you’re in Madrid, you have three options: the Intercity train, the Alvia train and the Hotel Train. Vigo has two railway stations: URZÁIZ where departs the AVE (Spain’s high-speed train), and GUIXAR, located in Areal St., bouth of them right in the city centre."

"Where departs the AVE" indeed? Does it really leave from Vigo or is that an urban myth? The strange English "where departs" I leave without comment. Likewise the odd spelling "bouth" which could conceivably be a typo although I suspect both these things are the result of someone's niece/brother/best friend having written it. However, I question the statement that Guixar station is really "right in the city centre". Only if you are a very fast walker from the city centre could that possible be considered the case! Poetic license I suppose!

The sun continues to shine here. The temperature gauge at the end of the road registered 21 degrees at 9 this morning, up to 27 by 12 o'clock when I walked down to the Movistar shop to put some credit on our Spanish mobile phones. Having paid my money and received my text message confirming that the credit was there I was still waiting for several minutes for a receipt. Production of the receipt involved the young lady shop assistant typing some stuff in the computer and then printing out an A4 sized sheet indicating how much I had paid and how much of it was various forms of VAT. Amazing! The Spanish do love their paperwork.

Anyway, the sunshine seems to be affecting Italy far worse than here. Or rather the heatwave and drought.

"Vatican authorities have turned off 100 fountains, including two Baroque masterpieces in St. Peter’s Square, due to a prolonged drought affecting the tiny city state and the city of Rome, which surrounds it.

Suffocating summer heat has followed two years of lower-than-average rainfall in Rome, forcing the Italian capital to close drinking fountains and consider the prospect of water rationing. More than a million residents of Rome are facing water rationing for up to eight hours a day as the prolonged heatwave that has ravaged southern Europe takes its toll.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said it was the first time authorities in the spiritual home of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics could remember being forced to turn off the fountains."

Apparently 72% less rain than normal fell in Rome in July. There was 74% less than normal in June, and a 56% reduction from the long-term average across March, April and May. Authorities are considering shutting off the water supply for several hours a day. Imagine being really hot in Rome and not being able to shower at will!

So the Vatican is showing solidarity and reminding us all that caring for the planet and its resources is an important issue for Pope Francis. I doubt if he is unable to shower but fountains will be switched off. “This decision is very much in line with the pope’s thinking on ecology: you can’t waste and sometimes you have to be willing to make a sacrifice,” said a spokesman.

I wonder if shutting off the water supply will work. I remember years ago my sister telling me about the same thing occurring in El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, where she lives. On the whole the net result was that most of her neighbours filled up the bathtub with water every evening, just in case they needed it, and then, usually not having needed it, let it all run away the following morning. 

There must have been some kind of logic at work there!