Italian culture, language, fashion, food, countryside, people… It’s all here.
I love taking photographs, and I almost always have a camera on my person somewhere - no matter where I am. When I’m in Italy especially, I’m pretty trigger-happy. Well, the kind folks at BootsnAll, which hosts this Italy Travel Guide, have produced a way for me to share my Italy photos with you. It’s still in development, but here’s a sneak peek of the Italy Logue photos page.
Unfortunately, I’ve got albums and albums full of photos of Italy from the days before I owned a digital camera, so I’ve either got to …
No Comments
Everyone loves a good mystery. Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” was a runaway best-seller for a reason, after all. But the latest Leonardo da Vinci-related mystery seems to have a bit more credibility. This time, an Italian musician and computer technician claims to have discovered music in da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”
Giovanni Maria Pala says that by overlaying a standard five-line musical staff over the major parts of the painting, he has found musical notes in the placement of the loaves of bread and the disciples’ hands. Pala’s discovery isn’t without an historical base, either - some people have long held that da Vinci had left a piece of music in the painting, hidden from plain sight.
When Pala first drew the musical staff over the painting, the positions of the loaves and hands looked remarkably like musical notes - except that the resulting “song” made no sense. Until, that is, Pala applied da Vinci’s own idiosyncracy to it: he played it backwards.
1 comment
Italian attitudes toward immigrants aren’t always welcoming, and the recent killing of an Italian woman (allegedly by a Romanian man) isn’t exactly helping. The police have begun rounding up and deporting immigrants who are deemed to be “a threat to public security,” and Romanians are target #1. In fact, they’ve become the target of revenge-style attacks, such as one in Rome where four Romanians were stabbed and beaten.
The government publicly condemns attacks of revenge and isn’t directly encouraging such behavior, but it’s certainly not discouraging the racist sentiment at its heart when it specifically singles out Romanians in the new effort to expel immigrants. So far, officials are tearing down some of the camp sites set up by Romanian and other immigrants on the outskirts of Italy’s big cities, and the government has vowed to send 5,000 Romanians back to their home country within the next few weeks.
2 comments
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 a great example of how the Italians use descriptive phrases to say ordinary things, which always make me smile:
Sta facendo il pappagallo.
2 comments
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 will be perfect for anyone who’s constantly got kids or animals getting underfoot:
Togliti dai piedi!
1 comment
I’m on my way back home today after a week in Milan, but the posts about Milan will continue for awhile - I’ve got lots of pictures left to share, and some more restaurant and gelateria recommendations, as well as tourist tips. I’ve had a great time here, meeting up with a couple of expat bloggers whose blogs I’ve been reading for awhile, putting some serious miles under my feet exploring a few interesting (and varied!) neighborhoods, tasting the local fare in a few different restaurants (both touristy and non-touristy) as well as enjoying …
No Comments
I arrived in Milan yesterday afternoon, and the husband was actually at the airport to greet me - this surprised me, as I thought he had been planning to go to the Inter/Lazio soccer game at San Siro. He quickly explained that he had gone - or at least attempted to go - but that the match was canceled, and then he explained why. (San Siro photo at left)
By now you may have already seen the news about the Lazio fan who was killed in what appears to be an accident. He’d been on his way to the match at San Siro when he and some other Lazio fans met up with some Juventus fans who were en route to a Juve game in Parma. The two groups got into a fight, and when the police arrived to try to break things up one officer evidently fired a warning shot which inadvertently killed the Lazio supporter.
3 comments
Every year the publishers of Condé Nast Traveler ask their readres to vote on “the best” of a whole host of travel-related areas - like hotels, transportation, resorts, etc. They’ve recently published the results for 2007, and I’m proud to say that Italy scores quite highly.
First of all, the compiled results of the top-scorers across all categories are crammed into one giant “best of the best” list and a hotel in Capri earned the highest score of all - a perfect 100. Not surprisingly, the Hotel La Scalinatella is a five-star hotel - …
No Comments
While a new study rates many Italian towns and cities as in very poor environmental health, and cities like Milan are trying to do something about that by charging vehicles to drive in the city center by how much they’re polluting, one Italian town has done something simple to help cut the levels of both air and noise pollution - the postman has gone green.
In the town of Crema, the postman used to do his rounds on a motorcycle. He’d leave it idling while he ran in to the various stops along his route, and it would spew both pollutants into the air on a constant basis nearly every day. The noise of the engine also disrupted the calm of the beautiful piazzas and cobbled streets. But now, instead of a noisy and polluting motorcycle, the postman in Crema uses an electric scooter that not only doesn’t pollute, it’s silent.
No Comments
It’s All Saints Day (Ognissanti) in Italy today, as it is every November 1. This is celebrated primarily by Catholics, but not just by Italians.
In Italy, All Saints Day is marked by people bringing flowers to the graves of their deceased relatives, and it’s a day to remember all Catholic saints and martyrs. The following day, November 2, is All Souls Day and that’s when the souls of the deceased - especially those believed to be in Purgatory - are remembered. These are both very important holidays in Italy, and November 1 in particular …
1 comment
