I don’t know about you, but I love spending time in hotels: the simple idea of not having to worry about cleaning around cheers me up and don’t even get me started about queen size beds and room service. I admit I don’t get the chance to stay at hotels often: […]
Since the earthquake, Italy has been wondering how many lives could have been saved had only Amatrice been built following proper anti-seismic regulations. If, possibly, many of the town’s older medieval buildings may have not been entirely rescued anyway, it is still true that reinforcing structures could have avoided many deaths: as the […]
Sentiero degli Dei, Path of the Gods. Ph. flickr/Sandra flic.kr/p/gnZaCy Il Sentiero degli Dei, the path of the gods. These were truly the lands of the gods. When you think of a quintessential backdrop to the lives and actions of Graeco-Roman divinities, it is to the blue of the Mediterranean and the deep […]
Totò in the 1930s (wikimedia) The legend of Totò Antonio De Curtis, better known as Totò, is not really popular outside of his home country, but here in Italy, he’s a true legend. His name’s largely associated with 1950’s and 1960’s comedy movies, however Totò marked with his talent also the […]
Il Teatro del Mondo Third of August 1778: it is a warm evening in Milan, but a breeze of novelty makes the air sparkle with expectation. The iconic Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, celebrates its 238th birthday (Lorenzoclick/Flickr flic.kr/p/rfefTZ) Young Antonio Salieri, already official composer of the imperial court in Vienna, stands […]
Spending time in Italy today is not much of a cultural shock: in the end, both the US and Italy belong to the same western cultural context and share a good amount of habits. There are quirks and differences, though, and it’s often these that make each of these countries […]
Sure, this is not the first article of its kind: a very recent one appeared on the Rai News webpage and was penned by the author of a popular column on the Babbel’s language learning website, Ed. M. Wood, who chose words both for their meaning and phonetics. Wood’s words are, […]
Agriculture, tourism and the food industry are essential to Italy’s economic growth I was born in the late 70s and, to my memory, there has not been a time when my country was not economically struggling: I have no recollection of the news mentioning anything different from “unemployment rise,” […]
Demographics have been showing Italy has been getting older. Indeed, aging in Italy is a real trend. And both a curse and a blessing. The numbers of aging in Italy ISTAT, the Italian National Institute for Statistics, recently confirmed a scary statistics. In fact, 2015 has been the year with the […]
Umberto Eco died on the 19th of February, at the age of 84: a huge loss for Italy’s – and the world’s – cultural panorama. Semiologist, novelist and philosopher, his works on Medieval Aesthetics and Scholastics have been used by generations of medievalists (yours truly included) to get in touch with […]