Italy News: 03.22.09

Some news from Italy for your Sunday reading pleasure:

• Here’s something rather personal… If you’re curious about my first trip to Italy, and how I fell so much in love with the country, Robin at My Melange asked me to write a guest post for her. And that’s what I wrote about.
• In a country where porn stars can turn into politicians, the news that an Italian porn star ended up spending some time at the police station in Milan after jumping onto a table at the city’s stock exchange wearing naught but her undies and some body paint in the colors of the Italian flag.
• Okay, I’m a big fan of technology, and an even bigger fan of pizza, but I’m not sure I like the idea of putting the two together. A vending machine in Italy that actually makes pizza from raw ingredients in a few minutes? Uhh, what?
• Thankfully, at least some Italian pizza makers think the pizza vending machine idea is pretty doggone stupid.
• The folks at La Tavola Marche say the “Marling Menu Master for Italy” is their #1 recommended book for a trip to Italy… I have & like that one, but I still say “The Hungry Traveler: Italy” is better.
• Borrowing a move from soccer, teachers in Italy will now be required to show misbehaving students a “yellow card” before they can fail them outright.
• I know a few expats in Italy who are more than a little excited about an American restaurant that opened in Rome and even serves Sunday brunch. I still think people who are on vacation in Rome for just a few days should devour as much Italian food as they can (and steer very clear of anything calling itself an American restaurant), but if you just can’t live without a little taste of the U.S. while you’re there, there’s now The Perfect Bun.
• I loved this story of a meeting with the author of “Too Much Tuscan Sun,” Dario Castagno.
• North Korea might not be the most open country on the planet (is that a candidate for understatement of the week, or what?), but apparently Kim Jong-Il likes Italian pizza so much that the country has just recently opened its first pizzeria.
• Italian tourism is about to get a new spokesperson, and she – as Blog from Italy notes – “is leggy and she knows it.”
• Headed to Rome anytime soon? You could win 3 free nights at Alessandro Palace Hostel in Rome simply by answering this question correctly.
• Travel+Leisure has put together a multi-page guide to Venice on their website.
• For anyone who still thinks that the J. Peterman Company was a creation of the Seinfeld writers, let me assure you that it was (and still is) a very real company. And they have a very real (and very pretty) blog, on which they recently talked about the “Pleasures of the Roman Table.”
• This is a fun story of an old woman in Venice thwarting a coup attempt simply by tossing a mortar – the kind you use to grind spices – out her window.
• Okay, I get that stray dogs attacking and killing children and tourists in Italy is a very bad thing, but when I hear that authorities are “cracking down on the stray dogs” I can’t help but think, “Yeah, but how did they get to be strays in the first place?” I’ve read so many stories about how some Italians abandon their pets when they go on long holidays, so it’s really the people who should be punished, not the dogs.
• Italy is in debt, and Alex at Blog from Italy takes a look at why.
• Mark your calendars, ladies – this past week was the first time ever that a woman directed traffic in Rome’s busy Piazza Venezia from the top of that central concrete pedestal.
• This online “what did Romans wear” game is pretty doggone cute.
• Rome might have introduced a bike-sharing program last year, but there are still no bike lanes – so proceed with caution.
• Want to be a museum reporter in Tuscany? Now’s your chance.
• For those of you who heard and were up in arms about the late-night snacking ban in Rome, you’ll be relieved to know that the new rule isn’t as strict as it first sounded.
• The famous Raphael painting “The Marriage of the Virgin,” which had been undergoing restoration work, is now back on display at the Brera in Milan. (It was still being restored when I visited last year, so I’m glad it’s back!)
• The largest forest of black coral in the world has been discovered off the coast of Calabria in southern Italy.
• Gianni Versace’s belongings from his villa on Lake Como are being auctioned by Sotheby’s, more than 10 years after the designer’s death.