Some news from Italy for your Sunday reading pleasure:
- Talk about a runaway bride… A bride in Italy actually went through the whole wedding ceremony and photos with her new husband before running off with their driver before the reception.
- Italian soccer star Christian Vieri, who has something of a playboy reputation in Italy (having been linked with an impressive string of Italian WAGs throughout his career), has introduced a signature line of – wait for it – condoms. You, too, can now use Bobo Vieri’s condoms. Wait, that doesn’t sound right…
- Really, the first line of this article sums it up pretty well (and also serves as a good one-liner joke to anyone paying attention to this guy): “Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has told CNN he has never committed a gaffe and that he doesn’t like his job much these days.”
- The EU may be sending roughly $680 million to Italy in earthquake aid after the quake in L’Aquila in early April.
- It sounds like Berlusconi will be spilling the beans to Parliament about his “relationship” with the 18-year-old model wannabe (which means he’ll be spewing more of the same “blame the press” nonsense he’s already been spewing – only this time it’ll be in front of Parliament.
- This is yet another story about Berlusconi’s recent troubles, but my favorite line actually comes from the opposition leader who says, “A politician has a duty to respond and a duty to tell the truth.” That’s rich.
- Berlusconi has even said he “would have to resign a minute later” if it turned out his denials of an affair with an underage girl were lies, but I wouldn’t hold your breath for a resignation anytime soon.
- More Berlusconi news (he is everywhere lately) – he’d been working to stop the publication of some potentially naughty photos taken at his Sardinian villa, and evidently he’s been successful. The photos apparently include him getting friendly with bikini-clad and/or topless women (depends on the account you’re reading), including the 18-year-old model who calls him “Daddy.”
- I’m with misciel – if a theatre burns down and needs to be rebuilt, is a candle really the best idea for a souvenir?
- Angela Nickerson put together her own newsy roundup, including an interesting link about a painting purchased by a Texas museum that’s supposedly Michelangelo’s earliest work. It’s said to have been done when he was 13 or 14, and it looks nothing like a work of Michelangelo to me. It looks more like Bosch.
- Time.com posted a short slideshow of images from Rome’s famous Sant’Eustachio bar.
- Tourists and wine lovers aren’t the only ones headed for Montepulciano these days. The cast & crew for the next “Twilight” movie are in town filming some scenes – which means vampire lovers are there, too. (I may be one of the few people who doesn’t find the lead actor, Robert Pattinson, hot – but the web is all abuzz with these pictures of him, shirtless, in some scenes.)
- The Vatican has had its own radio station for awhile, but starting in July they’re going to start airing advertising for the first time.
- Anyone studying Italian will have noticed that there are several English words that have made their way into everyday use in Italy – this post about “Anglitaliano” uses most of them to an amusing result.
- The New York Times recently did a piece about my favorite Italian wine, Valpolicella.
- Way back when I first started writing this website, I had read about – and then wrote about – what was billed as a “smog-eating robot” in Italy. Two-plus years later, it looks like the DustBot is more than just a dream. It’s still a prototype, and now it looks like it’s picking up your garbage as opposed to sucking up polluted air, but it’s very Jetson’s and I like it.
- Berlusconi, who you’ll remember from earlier as the guy who never makes gaffes (insert eyeroll here), has added insult to injury when it comes to the victims of the L’Aquila earthqake. First he said they should think of their tent city dwellings as a camping vacation, and now he says the Italian government intends to send them all on a real vacation. “We are organizing a series of holidays in the Adriatic Sea and looking into the possibility of Mediterranean cruises on which to send entire families and youngsters,” says Berlusconi. Right, because I’m sure the homeless folks in the earthquake region would rather have a few days on a cruise than – y’know – a new house.
- Berlusconi does claim that houses for 3,000 people left homeless after the Abruzzo earthquake will be ready by September. Unfortunately, that’s only a small fraction of the people who aren’t able to return home yet.
- A fire broke out on a commuter car ferry between Naples & Palermo late last week. The cause of the fire isn’t yet known, but the 526 passengers on borad had to be evacuated by lifeboat from the burning ferry.
- The displaced earthquake victims living in tent cities in the Abruzzo are trying to make the best of their situation.
- The 2009 Giro d’Italia wraps up this weekend – I’ll be in Rome for the finish, which I’m really excited about – but a few other people have written about their experiences with the Giro as it passed by their corners of Italy. James wrote his guide to watching the Giro, and Laura posted some photos & videos of the race passing through Amalfi.
- Last weekend when I was in Rome and the city was still prepping for the upcoming Champions League final, the Heineken beer bottle Colosseum was already up in Termini Station. I didn’t get any pictures of it (I know, bad blogger), but the folks at EternallyCool did. They also got a shot of some happy Barcelona fans splashing through the Trevi Fountain after their team beat Manchester United 2-0.
- But the Champion’s League wasn’t the only soccer game of note in Italy recently – the annual Clericus Cup, which pits teams of seminary students against one another, took place on May 23rd.
- It’s not unusual – in fact, it’s quite normal – to read about construction workers in Italy unearthing ancient ruins every time they break the surface of the earth. The latest story comes from workers in the courthouse in Florence – they’ve evidently found the remains of a 2nd century Temple of Isis.
- A decidedly more modern exhibit in Florence poses the work of Michelangelo with the work of Robert Mapplethorpe. Some large black & white Mapplethorpe photographs are on display in the Accademia in Florence, surrounding Michelangelo’s David.
- Despite stricter anti-smoking laws in Italy now, the number of Italians who smoke is higher this year for the first time in six years.
- The Dolomite mountains in northern Italy are getting closer to being added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites.
- The Umbrian town of Narni says it was the inspiration for C.S. Lewis’ fictional “Narnia,” after receiving “proof” from Lewis’ former personal secretary.
- A Naples school has been ordered closed until June 3rd because one student has been diagnosed with swine flu.
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