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Some of the most sought-after destinations on the Italian Riviera, like Portofino and Cinque Terre, were once quiet fishing villages, a situation hard to imagine now, considering how these alluring havens attracted throngs of visitors in pre-pandemic times. (The Local reports about 2.5 million tourists a year for Cinque Terre.) No doubt they will r...

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The global pandemic is having a huge impact on the international economy and according to the Institute of International Finance this crisis could be considered the third but greatest financial and social nightmare of the current century, after 9/11 and the global financial crisis of 2008. Even the tourism industry, one of the most profitable, has...

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What a peculiar summer this is: if it weren’t for the unbearable heat, it wouldn’t feel like a summer at all. Don’t get me wrong, Italians didn’t renounce to their Ferragosto-by-the-sea tradition, in fact, they’ve been letting loose a tad too much, if we look at the mild yet steady increase in Covid-19 infections of the past couple of weeks.  It’s...

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CINQUE TERRE IS A FAMOUS area of the Italian Riviera along the coast of Liguria. The rugged and mountainous terrain that makes up this coast creates many promontories and inlets. A medieval fortress known as Doria Castle (Castello Doria) stands on top of a rocky ridge near the village of Vernazza. The first nucleus of the fortress was dedicated dur...

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Gilda Siena likes to talk – so much so she is known among her guests as “the chatty woman”. In the decade since she bought a 19th-century building once inhabited by Venetian nobility in the Salento area – at the southern tip (the heel) of Italy’s Puglia region – and made it into boutique hotel Palazzo Siena-Home & More, this aspect of her personali...

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You can start your tour of Milan with a morning walk in Piazza del Duomo (Duomo - M1 and M3 lines). In addition to the majesty of this Gothic Cathedral with its Madonnina, the universal symbol of the city, it will be possible walking along the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II to observe the shop windows of its historic boutiques. Now we recommend at t...

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It is safe to say that American writer John Fante is better known to the European audience than to his native audience. His succinct prose is easily translatable and his countless stories like Ask The Dust, recounting the son of an Italian immigrant’s quest for literary fame are full of irony and wit. I am not sure that Fante actually spent any tim...

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The European Union (EU) anointed Matera, Italy the coveted title of “European Capital of Culture” in 2019, raising the city’s profile around the world. For many of us hooked on the engaging Italian TV series, Imma Tataranni: Sostituto Procuratore, the show’s protagonist, Imma Tataranni (played by Vanessa Scalera) might be considered one of the regi...

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The Etruscan cemeteries of Cerveteri and Tarquinia are rare and precious testimonies to the ancient Etruscans, who were the first people to establish an urban type of civilization in the western Mediterranean, a civilization that survived for about 700 years from the eighth to the first century BC, in the territories of central Italy, from Lazio to...

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There are few people as exuberantly in-tuned with the city of Venice as local Monica Cesarato. She is a tour guide and blogger giving visitors an in-depth lesson on La Serenissima but the coronavirus pandemic wiped out a year's worth a work in a matter of weeks. Instead of focusing solely on her own plight, Monica tirelessly is out there shouting f...

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