Italian holiday shows we are not so badly off in SA after all

Not sure whether to feel good or bad about this, but living the high life in Italy doesn't cost a whole lot more than schlepping through your average Joburg week.

Take beer, for instance. I found a shop down the road from our flat that sold quarts of Peroni for à1.50. That's not much more than R15, meaning about R7.50 for the pint we're used to buying from our local.

You'll probably pay double that in a restaurant, but still. One night the three of us treated ourselves to a blow-out dinner with all the trimmings. Wine, soup, salad, pasta, steak, pudding, coffee, Grappa. Less than R300 a head. What gives?

It was pretty weird, in a forensic investigation kind of way, to go to Europe in the midst of its disintegration.

We're so used to thinking the Old World is so superior, that it warrants paying through the nose to sample a taste, that we forget how good we've got it down here. Either that, or the South African cost of living has spiralled out of control.

In mid-September I sold a bunch of rands, including fees, for about R10/à. It hurt, but only until I spent the first euro in Rome. Hey, not so bad. R20 (à2) for a cheese and ham sandwich, R10 a bottle of water. It felt pretty good.

The people who probably don't feel great about Europe right now are the Americans. Italy is full of them, but they must be really smarting at the dollar-euro exchange rate. I went to one of those booths to exchange $90 and got à45.15 in return. Eina!

It may seem daft that the land of mad-dog Silvio Berlusconi should command a premium over the world's largest economy and its smooth-talking barkers, but that's just the way it is. Exchange rates tell just about the only truths going.

You get some idea of why this is simply by walking with a cricked neck looking up at the roof, elbowed in the kidneys at every turn by goggling, yammering Americans.

Forget Disneyland or the Niagara bleeding Falls, gawking at ceilings is the real money spinner. Whether it's the celestial loveliness (and sweatiness) of the Sistine Chapel or the sight of angry fairies plunging burning stakes into the bottoms of the bad guys (that big church in Florence), visions of Italy don't fail to seduce the punters. And, boy, there are a lot of them.

We went in autumn, supposedly after the rush, but you could barely move for badly dressed people with ice cream on their chins. Villages like San Gimignano in Tuscany are unplayable, I'm sorry. You might as walk through Montecasino or a Fourways tract housing estate.

The bigger towns are better, mainly because you can buy cheap beer and sit and watch girls in miniskirts drive Vespas. You might also be able to find a bar showing the rugby.

I was thrilled, after asking the first hawker I saw in the middle of the Siena parade ground, to find the city's very own dedicated rugby pub, open at 10 in the morning. Winning!

Same in Florence. Granted, you have to look for establishments of the Irish persuasion, but the facilities are perfect. I was the only gormless Saffer for miles around, but the odd Aussie and New Zealander stuck their heads in for a peek. No Poms.

What, you may ask, has the above gibberish to do with high finance, the raison d'être of this noble column?

Bugger all, mates! I go away for two weeks and the markets go to pot. Rand in the toilet, JSE and bonds gone to hell ... I tell you, there's a lot to be said for high-tailing it out of here, if only to clear your head a bit.

Golf today, chin-wag with the chinas, will be right as rain on Monday. Grazie e arrivederci!