SNCF train service to and from Monaco Monte-Carlo will be seriously disrupted on Thursday, October 19, as French unions hold another one-day strike in protest against new labour laws.
The so-called inter-professional protest will mean that only one in two trains will operate during the morning and evening rush hours between Nice and Monaco. Services to and from Menton and Ventimiglia will be similarly affected.
Disruption will extend into Friday, causing further delays and cancellations during the morning commute. The “one-day” protest – which went into effect Wednesday at 7 pm – is led by the CGT, France’s most militant trade union.
Meanwhile, Italian unions representing public sector workers have called on members to join in strikes on October 27 and November 10, both Fridays and the most popular day of the week for work stoppages in Italy. Both rail and air travel are likely to be hit.
The hot water supply at the Jardins d’Apolline building in the Condamine will be cut during the night of Thursday, October 19, and Friday, October 20, from 10 pm until 6 am.
Residents have been warned that following the reconnection of the supply, taps should be run until any discolouration disappears. Work on pipes on the 10th floor of B Block will involve loud noises that will last a few minutes.
The office responsible for the work has apologised to residents for inconvenience caused by the work, which is necessary in order to rectify serious ongoing problems with pipes in the buildings, which largely house Monegasque families.
Several streets will undergo roadworks from Sunday, October 22, until Friday, October 27, in rotation.
The roads affected are avenue de la Costa, avenue de l’Annonciade, avenue de la Madone, rue Louis Aureglia, lacets St Léon and rue du Ténao. To minimise the impact on traffic, this work will take place at night, usually from 7 pm to 6 am, starting with Avenue de la Costa.
The operation involves the removal of the top five centimetres of road surface and the laying of new tarmac. In some cases, work will involve the closure of neighbouring streets.
Following the resurfacing of avenue de la Costa, work will take place on avenue de l’Annonciade for two nights, followed by avenue de la Madone. Parking will also be prohibited while the work is underway. Avenue de Grande Bretagne will be closed, except to residents, for two nights.
The last street to be resurfaced will be rue du Ténao, from Wednesday, October 25, to Thursday, October 26.
Ince & Co has announced the appointment of Ian Fisher as a shipping and international trade partner in its Monaco office.
Having opened an office in the Gildo Pastor Center in the summer of 2011, Ince & Co provides English legal advice, with an emphasis on shipping, yachting, offshore energy, international trade and aviation.
Mr Fisher was previously a partner in the Singapore office of the Vietnamese law firm YKVN, having originally trained with Ince.
Ian Cranston, Managing Partner of Ince & Co’s Monaco location, said: “I worked closely with Ian on a number of high-profile cases before he left us for pastures new in 2005. I’m very pleased to welcome him back.
“Ian is a first rate operator and a great addition to our team. He has strong business development and legal skills and his ability to work well within a tight-knit team will be of major benefit to us and our clients.”
Mr Cranston additionally announced the promotion, with immediate effect, of Marco Crusafio to the position of co-gérant of the Monaco SARL, in recognition of his commitment and dedication to the Monaco office.
Jan Heuvels, International Senior Partner of Ince & Co, stated: “Ian’s recruitment and Marco’s promotion are recent examples of the investment that we continue to make in legal talent in our core sectors of transport, trade, energy and infrastructure and insurance.
Mr Heuvels added, “Shipping remains a key element of our firm’s transport sector group and since the start of 2017 we have also opened in Marseille, with the recruitment of Laurianne Ribes and Fabien D’Houssy, and have hired Thomas Schwenke and his team in Hamburg.”
The New National Museum of Monaco (NMNM) has been hosting an exhibition of photographs by Kasper Akhøj, Welcome (To The Teknival), dedicated to Villa E-1027 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, since early summer at Villa Sauber.
The exhibition has now been enriched with new photographs, taken in July of this year by Akhøj, which ends a work begun in 2008. The public can now admire 63 shots that are an echo to the portfolio made by the architect Eileen Gray during the construction of the iconic villa E-1027, the summer hideaway house designed by Eileen Gray for Jean Badovici between 1926 and 1929.
Kasper Akhøj also presents a new film entitled C2RMF75602, produced by the NMNM, in the video room of the Villa Sauber, recounting the restoration of a 16th-century painting entitled Portrait de Femme, attributed to Titian.
This film, shot in 16 mm, creates magnificent links to Welcome (To The Teknival), both of which pose many questions inherent in the conservation and restoration of heritage sites such as the Eileen Gray villa.
The Welcome (To The Teknival) exhibition runs until January 8, 2018. Villa Sauber is open daily from 10 to 6 pm; admission is €6 or free on Sundays.
Hidden in the hills of Southern Italy is a remote farm where the world’s most expensive ham is produced. I don’t know the farm address or even the name. A mysterious Daniele contacted me out of the blue to ask if I’d like to come to Naples to taste his prosciutto di Pietraroja ham. By coincidence, my partner and I were planning a trip to the Amalfi Coast so my curiosity got the better of me and I said yes.
Daniele sent instructions by email about how we should meet on the edge of a motorway near Casertano. We ignored this presage of a B-movie Mafia plot with the rationale that neither of us was important enough to kidnap.
Log in to your Premium Account (at the top of the page) to read full article.
She, or as it turned out he (my rudimentary Italian didn’t stretch to realizing that Daniele was a boy’s name), met us in a battered Fiat Uno. We followed his car down a dizzying wild-goose chase of country roads. He might as well have taken us blindfold, because we’d never be able to find the farm again. Finally we arrived at a modest wooden homestead, behind which stretched acres of undisturbed green hills. This verdant slice of paradise was chiefly for the enjoyment of 80 very lucky black pigs.
Daniele introduced us to Tullio, the farmer who rears the black pigs that Daniele makes into his prosciutto di Pietraroja ham. Tullio reminded me of an Italian version of Richard Briars in “The Good Life”. His rare black pigs were introduced from India to Italy by the Roman Emperor Trajan around 100 AD. Unlike easy-going white pigs that are ready to slaughter within nine months weighing 300 kilos, these black pigs take four years to put on just 150 kilos and another six years to turn into revenue-producing ham. I ponder that romance trumps financial efficiency when it comes to black pigs.
We were taken on a tour of the fields where the pigs roamed to the sound of Mozart playing in the background. According to research by the RSPCA, music socialises and calms pigs. They looked relaxed as they rolled about in the mud, snorted and gorged upon acorns.
I smiled nervously as Daniele told us: “Pigs eat everything from grass to flesh. It’s the best way of getting rid of a body.”
Daniele explained how only the female pigs are made into Pietraroja ham. Through pregnancy, the females develop pockets of fat that can be infused with flavours according to their diet. The pigs are fattened up on a rich fodder that includes five types of acorns, chestnuts, arugula, grasses and even rotten apples.
“The acid in the apples turns to sugar when they rot,” explained Daniele. “It’s the equivalent of pig chocolate.”
At four years old, the female pigs are slaughtered during the waxing crescent moon according to ancient Italian farming wisdom. Daniele only buys the legs to make his ham; the rest of the pig goes to make salami. The legs are then stored and matured for a further six years before the final prosciutto di Pietraroja ham is ready. After a decade of labour, the ham is given an official certificate of authentic origin by the Consorzio di Tutela.
Clutching our glasses of homemade red wine, we sat upon rusty chairs on the bougainvillea-shaded terrace. We watched Daniele tie the ham to a stand and brandish a large knife.
“If you cut ham with the grain in the Spanish way, you take all the nerves,” he said cutting the ham against the grain. “This way, the ham is softer.”
As we waited for the ham to be carved, Tullio brought out loaves of bread and plates of homemade mozzarella with tomatoes and basil. Everything from the red wine to the olive oil drizzled on our tomatoes had been produced in this self-sufficient idyll. Everything was 100% organic. His farm encapsulated the slow food movement that started in Italy a couple of decades ago.
Finally the ham was ready to be tasted. It looked richer in colour and softer than its distant cousin prosciutto di Parma ham. Bursting with the flavour of chestnuts and apples, the ham melted in my mouth. I’d never tasted ham like this before. I now understood why his prosciutto di Pietraroja ham had starred at events around the globe from St Tropez’ Byblos Hotel to Moscow’s Italian Embassy; why it had been nibbled by illustrious figures from Andrea Bocelli to Athina Onassis.
The good news is that Daniele can now bring this little slice of paradise to your home in Monte Carlo. A Master Cutter from the Consorzio di Tutela will serve out the ham. At around €6,000 per whole leg, it may not be cheap but surely the world’s best ham must be priceless.
You can grab a taste of the Italian slow food culture at Marcello, an Italian winery and deli where you’ll find prosciutto di Parma hams hanging from the ceilings as well as Parmesan cheese and wine. The store has another outlet in Beaulieu-sur-Mer. 22 bis Rue Grimaldi, +377 97 98 37 81
Hidden in the hills of Southern Italy is a remote farm where the world’s most expensive ham is produced. I don’t know the farm address or even the name. A mysterious Daniele contacted me out of the blue to ask if I’d like to come to Naples to taste his prosciutto di Pietraroja ham. By coincidence, my partner and I were planning a trip to the Amalfi Coast so my curiosity got the better of me and I said yes.