Italian News Snippets: 06.29.08

Some Italian news for your Sunday reading pleasure:

• If the idea of a “Pope Casanova” seems surprising to you (as it did to me), then check out this Times Online article about the young man’s entry into Rome before his more legendary days as a, well, a Casanova.
• Rick Steves writes about why he loves the Cinque Terre, even after all these over-touristed years.
• If Nutella isn’t addictive enough for you already, consider that some young Italians are eating some of the hazelnut goo that’s been “enhanced” with psychedelic mushrooms.
• Now that “Angels & Demons” is nearly done with filming in Rome, will Rome feel the “Dan Brown effect” just as Paris did after “The Da Vinci Code” came out? And would that be a good thing or a bad thing?
• I saw plenty of Italians tucking cell phones into their helmets before hopping onto their Vespas and weaving crazily through traffic, but one cyclist was fined because he was talking on his cell phone while he rode his bike. Go figure.
• Tourists in Florence (not to mention the locals) got a shock the other day when an advertising blimp crashed near the city center.
• Here’s a note to all lifeguards in Italy (or anywhere else, for that matter) – when you need a break, don’t leave a blow-up doll in your place.
• Just because someone’s Italian doesn’t mean he automatically has ties to the Pope. This guy got arrested for saying he was a Vatican representative when he wasn’t.
• One British tourist died and 30 more got ill during a stay at a four-star hotel on Lake Garda. Some food samples were taken away by the police, as food poisoning is the suspected culprit.
• Italy has lots of positive things going for it, but welcoming foreigners with open arms isn’t one of them.
• If you’re looking to go clubbing in Sicily, here’s a story about one of this person’s favorite clubs, about 20 minutes outside of Catania.
• The Azzurri coach, Roberto Donadoni, has been “removed” (a polite word for fired) as the national team’s coach after the team was beaten by Spain on penalty kicks in the Euro quarter-finals. Marcello Lippi, the man who led the team to a World Cup victory in 2006, has been re-hired to try to repeat history.
• The Azzurri soccer team may not be in the Euro tournament anymore, but there will be an Italian influence on the field anyway – Italian ref Roberto Rosetti has been chosen to referee the final today in Vienna.
• What a shock – the Italian senate has passed a bill which could keep Berlusconi from going to trial on a charge against him in Milan.
• This shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s tried to navigate his or her way around Rome, but Forbes has Italy’s capital city ranked 6th on their list of the most congested cities in Europe. The five above Rome are (in descending order from most congested) London, Berlin, Warsaw, Manchester, and Edinburgh – and Rome’s the only Italian city in the top 20.
• This list of the 40 hottest villas you can rent in Europe has several Italian villas on it – including some in Tuscany and Sardinia.
• The proposal to fingerprint all the Roma people in Italy (including children) has been met with criticism.
• Can’t go to Italy this summer? You can still transport yourself there with the help of a couple new books based in Italy.
• La Cucina Italiana is running a contest for an Italian Cooking School Vacation – it runs through the end of September, so you’ve got plenty of time to enter.
• Italy may be more well-known for its wine and coffee, but beer drinkers can rest assured that beer consumption is up by nearly 4% in the last year.
• If the words “Capuchin Friar” and “heavy metal band” sound odd so close together, then you’ll want to get familiar with Brother Cesare Bonizzi and his band, Fratello Metallo.
• Italian women may be on public display in Gucci and Armani ads with half their clothes off, but breast-feeding in public is still seen as a bit taboo in Italy. Don’t tell these women, who are part of the (ahem) “I’ll suckle where I want” campaign. Maybe it sounds better in Italian.
• Gay couples in Italy will be saying their “I Do’s” this year in an attempt to bring the concept of gay marriage into the mainstream in the country.
• The weather in Italy looks like it’ll be mostly good, if you like sun and mostly clear skies, although it doesn’t appear that the heat waves will linger the way they did last year.
• You may not believe this, based on the crowds in Italy’s most popular cities, but Italy’s apparently losing ground in terms of international tourism.
• Still, having said that, Siena ranks 5th on TripAdvisor’s list of the most visited European cities.
• Here’s one Rome resident’s recommendations for things to see and do in Rome, whether it’s your first visit or your tenth.
• I’m not sure how an “albergo diffuso” is different than staying in a rented apartment in a city, except that it includes a restaurant as well. The idea here is that the hotel isn’t in one building, but several apartments spread out throughout a town – like Sextantio in Santo Stefano di Sessanio in Abruzzo.
• The latest issue of National Geographic Traveler has Rome as its cover story, so there’s lots of Rome-related stuff on their website now, too. The magazine has some good stuff, but I thought the quiz and the Trastevere video were particularly cool.
• If you like the idea of touring Rome by Vespa but want someone else to arrange it for you, you’ll be pleased to know that at least one company can handle all the details. (Something tells there are probably lots of tour companies that do this, too, so if this one doesn’t suit you don’t despair.)