Here you will find the latest headlines about Italy, particularly news related to travel and tourism in the country. I would love to have the discipline to update this daily. Instead, I only get around to highlighting this story or that one. To supplement the Italy news you learn from these posts, check out my go-to sources Corriere della Sera (in Italian) and, in English, The Local Italy.
Time to add two more Italian sites to the UNESCO World Heritage List. In July, UNESCO inscribed the Po Valley towns of Mantua and Sabbioneta and the Rhaetian Railway, which passes through the Swiss Alps into Tirano, Italy. Both new sites are located in the region of Lombardy. Mantua (Mantova) and Sabbioneta were selected for…
Unlike Greece, Italy isn’t a land of islands. Sure, there’s Sicily, Capri, and the Tuscan Archipelago, which includes Elba. But there is also a small set of islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea between Rome and Naples that, according to Guy Dinmore of The Financial Times, “offer a safer and saner way to travel” for those…
Rome’s famous Renaissance street, Via Giulia, is celebrating its 500th anniversary this year. And, the New York Times‘ Elisabeth Rosenthal provides the history and descriptions of the streets’ sites in her article A Stroll in Rome With a Papal Pedigree. Usually an unharried street, Via Giulia is set to be quite busy this year with…
A round-up of food festivals in Le Marche.
Earlier today, we wrote about the travel potential of the region Puglia, this year’s emerging star of Italian tourism. Well, if Puglia is the new Tuscany then some years from now Abruzzo will be the new Puglia. Richard Norton-Taylor writes about Vasto, a largely “unknown” beach on the Costa Abruzzese for the The Guardian. There…
On April 24, the new tomb of Padre Pio was unveiled in the Puglian city of San Giovanni Rotondo. The new tomb now features the exhumed body of Italy’s most recent homegrown saint, who died in 1968 and who was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2002. According to Ian Fisher’s San Giovanni Rotondo…
Update: Admission to the Roman Forum is included in the combined ticket for the Parco Colosseo Archeological Area Well, it was fun while it lasted. According to the folks at Dream of Italy and Tony Polzer from 3 Milennia Tours, the Roman Forum will begin to charge admission as of March 9th. Tony lays out…
This one comes from the U.K.’s Italy Magazine, which tells us that the Corleone villa of former Mafia boss Salvatore Riina has been turned into farmstay housing, a.k.a., an agriturismo. The Pio La Torre Cooperative, named for a martyred anti-Mafia activist, belonged to Riina before it was seized by the State after his 1993 capture….
Now that we’ve entered the Holy Season, tourism to Rome is going to start heating up again quite quickly. Of course, you can follow the pilgrimage throngs around the Lenten Station circuit. Or, you can travel outside the city walls to check out the Via Appia Antica. David Farley’s one-day itinerary along the ancient road…
If you believe the legend that Rome was founded more than 2,000 years ago by the twins Romulus and Remus, then the news that scientists have found the Lupercale, the cave where a she-wolf suckled the pair, will surely astonish you. According to Reuters, archeologists restoring the ancient Palace of Augustus on the Palatine hill…
You can blame my postman for me being a little slow on reporting about the excellent Rome-related book reviews in the October 11th issue of the New York Review of Books. When I happened upon Ingrid Rowland’s review of four books – Rome from the Ground Up; The Seven Hills of Rome: A Geographical Tour…
Today the world mourns the passing of a titan of music. Luciano Pavarotti, the man who introduced opera to a wider audience than any other before him, lost his battle with pancreatic cancer on 6 September 2007. He was 71. There are many tributes on the web, including a Life in Pictures on bbc.com, reaction…
Olive oil “fraud” in Italy is rampant. In fact, tons of so-called “extra virgin olive oil” is made from “illegal importations of seed oil and cheap olive oil from outside the E.U.” In the most recent New Yorker, Tom Mueller discusses the increasingly corrupt business that has become the olive oil trade. In 1997 and…
I’m very lucky. The very first time I tasted risotto was in Milan. We were en route to Verona and ate the creamy, saffron-tinted risotto milanese at the train station cafe. Even given the locale, it was still an epiphany. Apparently, I’m not the only one who has dreams about one of Milan’s most prized…
In a recent NY Times Foraging column, Melissa Clark profiles Antica Aguzzeria del Cavallo, a cutlery shop that dates back to 1783. Clark notes, “If it cuts, rips, tears, nicks, grates, slices, shaves or pricks and is legal to sell, they most likely have it.” Here’s another taste of the short article: When Antonio Bernagozzi…
It’s getting ever more difficult to get into the Vatican Museums. The museums, Musei Vaticani in Italian, are home to some of the world’s most precious and recognizable Western art including Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. The Vatican recently raised prices for a non-guided visit and, according to the New York Times, the Museums are…
Welcome to the Italofile – your resource for Italy travel information. Bear with us – we’ll be up and running soon. In the meantime, we recommend the following guides for planning your next trip to Italy: The Unofficial Guide to Central Italy Michelin Green Guide Tuscany Frommer’s Italy 2006 Italy Eyewitness Travel Guide