A Show of Hands: A Look at the Marble Hands of Ancient Statues in Rome
It all started with David.
Experiences
Tours, outdoor recreation, and other activities to consider for your Italy itinerary
![Visiting the Colosseum Dungeons on a Guided Tour [Review]](https://www.italofile.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_4780-768x576.jpg)
Visiting the Colosseum Dungeons on a Guided Tour [Review]
My review of the tour: Colosseum “Dungeons, Third Level and Arena Floor,” Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill.
The Monumental Trees of Italy
Have you seen this book? Many years ago, I found this book while browsing the clearance stacks at a used bookstore in Washington, DC. Published in 1990, Gli Alberi Monumentali d’Italia is a beautiful coffee table book full of color photos of legendary trees from Italy’s islands and central/southern regions. Roman pines, Holm oaks, olive,…
Will the Vatican Museums Finally Limit the Number of Visitors?
The Vatican Museums welcome up to 25,000 visitors per day. Is it time for them to limit the crowds?
Smoking in Italy
What you need to know about smoking in Italy, from laws to etiquette.
Exploring the Ghetto: A Tour of Rome’s Jewish Quarter [Review]
Learn more about the ancient and contemporary history of the Jewish people in Rome with a tour through the ex-Ghetto.
Rome’s Fountains, Brought to You By…
Recently, city officials in Rome unveiled the Barcaccia fountain, which had been under wraps for the past year so it could be cleaned. The Barcaccia is now gleaming, as you can see in the photo above, and provides a pleasing visual for all those tired souls taking a breather on the Spanish Steps.
Lovely Time Lapse Video of Rome
I always love a good time-lapse video, and especially if it features Rome! Here’s a very recent one that shows Rome in her late summer splendor. It was shot by Josh of jandrewfilmandphotography.com, who used 7,000 images to create this 2-minute, 37-second clip. Hyperlapse has a long way to go to get results like these.
Veneto Spa Hotel Has the World’s Deepest Thermal Pool
About half an hour by train from Venice and even closer to Padua is Hotel Millepini Terme, a spa hotel that has the Guinness World Record for the world’s deepest thermal pool. The Y-40 The Deep Joy is 137-feet deep (40 meters) at its deepest, with four underwater grottos along the way. There’s a viewing tunnel at…
Italy Hit Parade Vol. I
Discovering new or new-to-me music has always been one of my favorite things about traveling and living abroad. So I plan to use this space to bring you some of the songs that I’m listening to in Italy. Some of the music will be bubbly pop, some hip hop, some…I don’t know what. But most, if…
Ancients Doing Modern Things
Sed primum a me accipe selfie
Surf Italiano: Two Films About Surfing in Italy
Watch the trailers of “Peninsula” and “Bella Vita,” two documentaries on surfing in Italy.
From Veronese to Futurism: Italian Art in the NYRB
Excerpts from the Art Issue of the New York Review of Books. Reviews on Veronese, Piero della Francesca, and Futurism. There’s also a Michelangelo poem.
Venice Hosts Biggest Leonardo da Vinci Show in 30 years
The exhibit “Leonardo da Vinci, The Universal Man” will be at Venice’s Accademia, which owns 30 Leonardo works. It will bring together 27 other Leonardo masterpieces from various European museums such as the Uffizi, the National Gallery of Parma, the British Museum, and the Louvre. The iconic “Vetruvian Man” will be one of many highlights….
The Roman Spring of Tennessee Williams
In the late winter/early spring of 1948, American playwright Tennessee Williams arrived in Rome in need of a change of scenery. Williams, of course, is known for his writing set in the American South, including “A Streetcar Named Desire” (written in 1947) and “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” (1955), both of which earned him Pulitzer…
The Best Ever In-Depth Video of Siena’s Palio
Inspiration always seems to find me when I’m not looking and that is exactly what happened as I settled in to watch a few minutes of television last night. Lucky for me, I clicked over to Kenny Mayne’s Wider World of Sports, a show on ESPN that puts sports into a cultural context. One of…
Remembering the Battle of Montecassino
About an hour and a half south of Rome lies Montecassino, an enormous Benedictine monastery whose environs witnessed a very costly battle of World War II.
The Art of Nobel Winner Dario Fo
Calling Italian playwright Dario Fo a “Renaissance” man would probably irk him given his long history of questioning authority and mocking the status quo. But Fo, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997 (one of six Italians to have won the literature prize) proves he is worthy of this nickname with the new…