If you have ever visited Milan by car and actually managed to find a parking space, you may have returned to your vehicle the next morning to find it parked in a now all but deserted street and you may have found a nice little fine stuck under your wiper blade. Well, somehow, you may have been able to work out that you got this fine because you left your car in a street that was scheduled to be cleaned.
This situation catches out many foreign visitors to Milan, and Italy, all the time I imagine. People either don’t see or don’t understand the street signs that indicate the day and time that street cleaning will take place.

Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
Well, I have a piece of good news for you. From the 10 June, 2007, in Milan, the Amsa cleaning company will implement its impressively entitled ‘Global Cleaning’ system. This means that it will no longer be necessary to remove your car so that street cleaning can take place. So, no more fines.
The only slight fly in this seemingly welcome ointment, is that it is not all that clear whether this new cleaning system will be implemented throughout Milan. The circular which we received yesterday gives a long list of streets, but I doubt whether this list includes every single street in Milan. Which means that you still still have to be on the lookout for those pesky signs. I’ll take a photo of one of these signs and pop it into this blog entry when I have a free moment.