Some Italian news for your Sunday reading pleasure:
Here’s your warm fuzzy Italy story for the day: Rather than punishing a shoplifter, this Italian store owner organized other customers to make sure the elderly man didn’t have to steal the food he clearly couldn’t afford.
Apparently Italian women still aren’t too keen on using contraceptives - only half use contraception, and only one-third took safety precautions during their first sexual encounters.
Italofile has a couple of suggestions for what’s going on in Italy in October, including Perugia’s famous Eurochocolate festival.
Starbucks is set to open …
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Here is the contact information for the Australian Embassy and Consulates in Italy. While you hope to never need their services while you are traveling, it’s good to know they’re there if you do!
Australian Embassy in Rome
via Antonio Bosio, 5
00161 Rome
tel: (+39) 06 852 721
fax: (+39) 06 8527 2300
Opening hours: Monday-Friday, 09:00-05:00 (except for public holidays)
website: http://www.italy.embassy.gov.au/
Australian Consulate General in Milan
3rd Floor, via Borgogna 2
20122 Milan
tel: (+39) 02 777 041
fax: (+39) 02 77 704 242
website: http://www.dfat.gov.au/missions/countries/itmi.html
email address: Australian-Consulate-General-Milan@austrade.gov.au
Australian Embassy to the Holy See (Vatican)
via Paola, 24 Apt 10
00186 Rome
The Holy See
tel: (+39) 06 687 7688
fax: (+39) 06 …
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Psst - I’ve heard a rumor about travel in Italy. I’ve heard that the table wine is always excellent, Italians drive like maniacs, Tuscany is more beautiful than words can describe and Florence has the best gelato in the country. Are all those things true? It almost doesn’t matter - you kind of want to go there and find out for yourself either way.
Well, Lufthansa is now encouraging us to start rumors about foreign countries. They’ve launched a contest they’re calling RumorTravels, and all you need to do is come up with a travel rumor about a foreign country …
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While Venice is a beautiful floating city, a wonderland for romantics, it is notorious for its sub-standard food. The logic seems to be that people will still flock to Venice by the millions every year, and they’ll eat whatever’s available - so why bother with the food? Of course, there is truth to this argument. Visitors will come to Venice regardless of what food is on offer, and they’ve got to eat something. So they’ll pay for the experience of dining on Venice, perhaps at a candlelit canalside table, rather than the memorable cuisine.
But you don’t have to write Venice off completely when it comes to food. You can get a good meal in Venice, and it doesn’t take much digging to figure out how. The top trick is to get the heck away from the tourist-filled areas.
>> Check out this list for some recommendations of where to eat in Venice
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Seeing as how Italy is home to the international headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, it only stands to reason that the country would be dotted with monasteries and convents, which it is. And if you know anything about monasteries and convents, many have a tradition of taking in weary travelers (often pilgrims). Today, that trend continues as many convents and monasteries have opened their doors to travelers of all faiths as something akin to hostels.
While finding Italian convents and monasteries to stay in can be a challenge (they don’t always have websites, and often aren’t listed in guidebooks), if you’re on a tight budget it’s a great idea to consider. Some have strict rules about unmarried men and women sleeping in different parts of the building, early curfews, early wake-up calls to prayer (sometimes required) and the like - but if you read all the rules and you know you can follow them, you’re in luck.
On the plus side, beyond the fact that the price is usually dirt cheap, the buildings you’ll be staying in are sometimes historic, beautiful buildings that you’d never get to see the inside of otherwise. You’re also going to get a warm welcome, a meal (often), and - especially important for women traveling alone - a real feeling of security.
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I love Italian idiomatic expressions - those sayings you just can’t translate directly but which make the Italian language the colorful and charming language it is.
Today’s saying has to do with proportion, and could come in handy if you’re out for drinks with your Italian friends and you want to avoid having one too many. Whereas in English we might say, “Just a drop of wine for me,” indicating that we only want a small amount poured into the glass, the Italians have this saying:
Per me, solo un dito di vino.
Literally, it means, “For …
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When you’re the kind of traveler who wants to get off the beaten path in Italy and have a certain degree of independence, it helps to have a guardian angel around to make sure you don’t get lost. Because there’s a difference between finding charm in undiscovered Italy and losing your way entirely. One is fun, the other is decidedly not.
Writer Rachel Escott cycled through Umbria recently, and she wasn’t alone - even when she was by herself. The tour she took came with not only a bike rental and luggage transfers, but also with a little MP3 player which had videos on it that gave morning pep talks before a day’s ride, explained different sights along the way, and provided direction when necessary. The combination of written directions with video clips to accompany them are enough to put even the most navigation-challenged traveler at ease. And because you’ve got all the instructions you need with you at all times, you can take your time along the route.
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Visitors to Rome can’t be blamed for getting tired of “all the old stuff.” I mean, when you’re talking about a city with sights like the Colosseum and Roman Forum, it’s hard to not kind of glazed over when you try to contemplate how many people have walked where you’re walking. But I’m going to suggest that you try to shake yourself out of that for your visit to the Pantheon, because this is one of my favorite buildings anywhere. I think it’s just that cool, and I’m pretty sure you will, too.
Built in about 125 A.D., the Pantheon looks today as it has looked for, well, thousands of years. It’s the best preserved Roman building, and possibly the best preserved building of its era anywhere in the world. It has been in constant use since it was first built, which is no small feat. The name “Pantheon” means “all the gods,” reflecting the building’s original purpose - a temple to all the gods, which at the time meant the seven gods of the seven planets recognized in Ancient Rome. When Christianity became the new craze sweeping the nation, many temples were abandoned or demolished as churches to the new religion were built. But in what turned out to be a brilliant move, in 609 the Pope reconsecrated the Rome Pantheon as a Christian church, thereby ensuring its survival. The church’s official name is the Church of Mary and the Martyrs, but it’s almost always still referred to by its original name of Pantheon.
The building itself has been a source of wonder since it was first erected; during the Renaissance, no one could figure out how such an enormous dome could exist without interior support columns. In fact, Brunelleschi, the architect who eventually designed the dome for Florence’s famous cathedral was permitted to cut a hole in the Pantheon’s dome in order to solve the mystery. The answer to the puzzle is that the domed ceiling starts out very thick where it meets the walls and gets thinner and lighter as it goes up. At the very top, it’s largely made up of volcanic pumice stone. You can still see the hole Brunelleschi cut, just above the door on the inside.
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I love Italian idiomatic expressions - those sayings you just can’t translate directly but which make the Italian language the colorful and charming language it is.
Today’s saying is an emphatic one, in both English and Italian, but for some reason I think I’d have a hard time using the Italian version without giggling just a little (at least on the inside). I’ll let you decide whether you might, too.
Chiaro e tondo!
This is the Italian stand-in for “In no uncertain terms!” - something you’re going to be serious about, most likely, which is why knowing …
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One of the Europe’s biggest low-cost airlines, Ryanair is set to offer flights to Italy in and out of Milan’s Malpensa Airport. Currently, Ryanair flies in and out of Fiumicino in Rome, and there’s no word on whether the budget giant would continue to operate there as well. Italy’s national airline, Alitalia, has pulled the majority of its operations out of Malpensa in order to concentrate on Rome (and on trying to stop losing money hand over fist), and Ryanair sees the Alitalia pullout as the perfect opportunity.
In what it called the “Manifesto for Malpensa,” Ryanair said that Milan’s airport “has never achieved its full potential because it has always bet on the wrong horse: Alitalia.” Ryanair’s bid to establish operations in Milan was delivered a couple weeks ago, and the airline is apparently ready to spend over $1 billion between now and 2012 to:
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