Italian News Snippets: 05.18.08

Some Italian news for your Sunday reading pleasure:

• News Flash – all Eurofly flights from New York to Italy in May are only $499. Do not pass go, do not stop for lunch, just buy these tickets now!
• The last time Berlusconi was the PM, one of his cabinet ministers had to step down after he wore a T-shirt bearing a cartoon likeness of Muhammed. So what does Berlusconi do as the new incoming PM of Italy? Why, he names that same fellow to a new cabinet position, that’s what.
• More blasts from the past with Berlusconi’s new cabinet – this beauty is the woman who helped create such an uproar last year when our dear Silvio said he’d have married her in an instant if he wasn’t already married. It was his wife who was, understandably, most upset.
• And more about Berlusconi’s beautiful new cabinet minister – she says that being beautiful helps in politics because “the political world is a segment of society full of male chauvinists.” I wonder if Berlusconi was listening to that.
• The Italian government is still trying to find a solution to keep Alitalia not just afloat but in Italian hands.
• Italofile’s not surprised that four out of the Times UK’s 12 locations for “dirty” (AKA romantic) weekend getaways in Europe are in Italy. I’m not surprised, either.
• Sometimes cramming every vacation day with tourist attraction after tourist attraction isn’t the way to go. This writer walked through a part of Sicily, covering far less ground but getting a much more intimate experience than most.
• The Peter Greenaway light and music show about The Last Supper has been extended in Milan – you can now see it through June 9, 2008.
• If you’ve been to Venice in the last couple of years and you’re female, you may have had your derriere photographed by a guy who was just arrested. Honestly, I’m more shocked they arrested him than by what he was arrested for…
• Florence is the city of Michelangelo, and his fingerprint can be seen all over the place. Here’s a tour of Michelangelo’s Florence that won’t break the bank.
• Here’s a tour of several points in Rome which were made famous by the movies of Federico Fellini.
• This visitor to Florence has a few good tips on seeing the major sights without getting caught in the biggest crowds.
• And for a totally un-Italy-related bit of news, an Italian travel blog has done a profile on the city where I currently live – Portland, Oregon – calling it “the most beautiful city in the US” (even though the survey that’s based on appears to have crowned New York with that title). How fun!