Some news from Italy for your Sunday reading pleasure:
There’s still news coming out of Italy about the earthquake on April 6th, and I’m still updating the post I wrote about it back then. Check my L’Aquila earthquake post for all the information I’m finding online from the 6th to the present.
- I make no secret of my affection for Venice, so I’m not surprised at how much I love this video about the gondola tradition and the Regatta Storica. But I seriously don’t think it’s possible for anyone to watch it and not end up wanting to go to Venice. I dare you to try. (Oh, and it’s in brilliant HD, so turn it on full screen.)
- Want to win a week-long stay in a villa in Tuscany? Then leave your email address on this page at Ciao Bambino before April 30th and you’re in the drawing.
- I so completely want to try this the next time I’m in Milan… A restaurant on one of the city’s vintage trams? And it’s actually moving through the city while you eat? Genius.
- Mussolini’s hometown has banned the display of any Fascist memorabilia as they try to rehabilitate their image.
- Are you on Facebook? Are you good with recognizing scenes in Italy? Guess where this photo in Italy was taken.
- A scientist who once claimed the Shroud of Turin had to be a fake has changed his tune, now thinking the carbon-dating done on the cloth back in 1988 was flawed.
- Frommer’s has a nice review of a few wineries in Chianti that’s worth a look if you’re thinking of visiting the vineyards.
- Travel + Leisure magazine online put up an article about visiting the villa gardens in Northern Italy.
- Italy’s public debt evidently hit a new record high in February – not good news when there are also estimates that the earthquake reconstruction will cost billions.
- I’ve been reading about the fourth bridge spanning the Grand Canal in Venice, how there were construction delays and complaints about its design, but this picture on Venice Daily Photo makes it look awfully pretty, despite all the grumbling.
- And no sooner did I write that when I read that vandals recently broke two of the new bridge’s glass steps. C’mon people, really?
- A cartoonist at RAI has been fired after he created an image of Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi as Emperor Nero at the site of the L’Aquila earthquake. Why was the cartoonist fired? Berlusconi asked him to be, of course.
- Theatre and opera lovers, there’s a new Italy map that might help you find performances throughout the country.
- After the recent Abruzzo earthquake, the Italian culture ministry says roughly 60% of the country’s historic monuments and heritage sites would be at risk if an earthquake struck near them.
- This doesn’t surprise me, though it still saddens me. The Council of Europe has “serious concerns” about how xenophobic Italy is.
- Cherrye has some great basic tips for anyone thinking of visiting Italy on how to best plan their Italian vacation.
- I love that Italians name their kids from such a small pool of names for the most part that a bank in a town on Lake Como has taken to identifying customer accounts by nicknames.
- I’ve never heard of these guides before, but they sound really interesting – the My Local Guide for Rome is featured here, and there are several for other cities in Italy as well.
- The Ferrari team on the Formula 1 racing circuit is paying tribute to the earthquake victims with a message on their cars which reads, “Abruzzo nel cuore,” or “Abruzzo in our hearts.”
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Love your Sunday news reading!