At one point or another, most people have fancied themselves LEGO artists, creating miniature masterpieces out of the wildly popular Danish building blocks. For Chicago-based artist Rocco Buttliere, however, LEGO are more than tiny, plastic blocks-they’re a medium for exploring the world around us and the touchstones of human civilization. Buttlie...
READ MORETraditional Roman pasta dishes, but also saltimbocca, supplì. And pizza. From pizza al taglio to pizza bianca, from pinsa to pizza e fichi to pizza alla pala. And again, maritozzo or ice cream, abbacchio a scottadito and artichoke dishes, Roman style or alla Giudia. Tomatoes with rice, coda alla vaccinara and Roman tripe. The typical dishes in the...
READ MORE“Every time you enter the square you find yourself in the midst of a dialogue.” So wrote Italo Calvino in his famous masterpiece The Invisible Cities and, perhaps, such an expression encapsulates better than any other metaphor or description the multifaceted and changing aspects intrinsic to these neuralgic city places. A true locus amoenus for tha...
READ MOREFor more than 30 years, one of Italy’s most well-hidden archaeological treasures has been an underwater village called La Marmotta. The site, with well-preserved artifacts, was discovered in 1989 in a lake just northwest of Rome and 23 miles upstream from the Mediterranean Sea. Found among its wooden buildings were five canoes, stretching up to 32...
READ MORERome Fiumicino Airport has been named the World's Best Airport for Security Processing by Skytrax, the principal rating and assessment company in the international airport sector. The recognition for Fiumicino, known officially as Leonardo da Vinci International Airport, is part of the 2024 awards from the UK-based Skytrax which surveys travellers...
READ MOREDear friends, I just came back from a magnificent Verrazzano Day in Tuscany, in Greve in Chianti, the small town where the great explorer who first entered New York Bay 500 years ago was born. It was a beautiful day of friendship between Italy and the United States together with the Tuscan authorities, the new U.S. Consul in Florence Danela Ballard...
READ MOREWalking can be a way of life, but it is, above all, one of the easiest and most effective ways to understand the soul of a city, discover its secrets and savor its atmosphere: a “slow tourism” in other words, a more relaxed way of travelling and enjoying history and culture, which is at the same time freer and full of more surprises. To find out...
READ MOREFollow the footsteps of Gianlorenzo Bernini who has shaped our very idea of Rome. The twisting Roman streets and piazzas are Bernini’s showroom, filled with his masterpieces of sculpture, paintings and architecture. No artist defined 17th-century Rome more than Bernini did, working under nine popes and leaving an indelible mark on the Eternal City....
READ MOREThe Eternal City celebrates its 2,777th birthday on 21 April with historical re-enactments including costumed parades past the Colosseum and gladiator fights in the Circus Maximus. Known as Natale di Roma, the annual birthday celebration is based on the legendary founding of Rome by Romulus in 753 BC, and this year takes place from 19-21 April. Rom...
READ MOREWhether it’s to research, study, visit or soak up into Italy’s culture and history, visiting one of the capital’s libraries should be on your to-do list. Below you’ll find some of our favorite libraries in Rome. Vatican Library (Biblioteca apostolica vaticana) One of the oldest libraries in the world, it was officially established in 1475 but its p...
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