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The region of Molise, one of Italy's smallest, plans to introduce a grant for people who open businesses in its least populated towns and villages. Dubbed the reddito di residenza attiva or 'active residency allowance', the stipend could be worth around €700 a month for up to three years, the equivalent of €24,000 in total. There are just two condi...

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Gorizia is a very charming city located at the border of Italy and Slovenia. Gorizia had once been the main town of the region but when the international border had separated it in 1945, its importance has decreased. Today, in Slovenia across the border a new town has been founded by the name of Nova Gorica. Gorizia is located at the confluence of...

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The brightly painted face of a medieval-knight-turned-marionette. A three-legged Medusa grimacing from the center of a ceramic plate. The wooden wheel of a horse cart, painted in the colors and complexity of a kaleidoscope. There is something about Sicily’s most typical products that embodies its culture: vibrant, splashy, inherent with meaning. Ab...

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Tintoretto was one of the leading painters in Venice between the 15th and 16th centuries – he spent almost his entire life in Venice, where he was born in 1518 or 1519. His family name was Robusti; he took the name Tintoretto from his father's profession of dyer (tintore in Italian). He was also nicknamed ‘Il Furioso,’ (the furious) for his energy...

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Posta Fibreno is a karstic lake in the foothills of Italy’s Lazio region, and though it may seem more like an engrossed river, it is a small, serene lake home to a very unusual natural phenomenon known since Roman times. Described by Pliny the Elder in his 1st-century Naturalis Historia, the lake is the setting for the subtle dances and movements o...

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Of all things you may imagine to find in Naples , a dolls’ hospital – or an ospedale delle bambole, to say it in Italian – is probably one  of the strangest.  But let me introduce you to it with a little anecdote. A few  years ago, I was in Chicago with one of my best friends. Sometime before, she had introduced me to the American Girl dolls: she h...

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Trapani was once situated in the heart of a very powerful trading center, even today its important harbor is extremely precious to Sicily, and this is where the tourists from the neighboring cities enter Sicily. On the outside, the city might seem like an urban maze of buildings and wires but once you explore the real Trapani, you would be amazed a...

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We’re sitting on picnic benches cluttered with carafes, stomachs full of cheese and chicory, cheers-ing with strangers and singing along with two senior gents on guitar: in other words, it’s Tuesday night in the Castelli Romani. Specifically we’re in Frascati, one of the largest of the ‘Roman Castles’, the scattering of towns in the Alban Hills sou...

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Puglia needs no special introduction. Its sea, the baroque grandeur of Lecce, its olive oil and fresh cheeses: all in the region of Italy’s “heel” calls for attention. Aficionados of the Middle Ages and mystery can explore Castel del Monte, while Gargano is perfect for sea holidays lovers and Alberobello, with the whitewashed walls of its trulli, b...

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Goethe once said once you’ve seen Naples you can die. Whether or not this is true is, of course, debatable, but what is certain is that one can’t appreciate the unique characteristics of the city or its people without taking into account that they live in the shadow of a mighty volcano.  Mount Vesuvius, destroyer of Pompeii, is still active today a...

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