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Juicy Orange Fight in Ivrea

Juicy Orange Fight in Ivrea

Anyone who has been in Italy for any length of time will know that the country is packed with traditions, festivals and fairs. Some celebrate food, others feature jousting competitions, and one even honours snakes.

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Inside Bologna - Places to Eat - Part 1

Inside Bologna - Places to Eat - Part 1

Italian Tiziana Zanasi and her family let a holiday apartment in central Bologna. A little while back Tiziana wrote to say that she and her family thought that Blog from Italy was 'great'.

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Slow Down at La Tavola Marche Agriturismo

Slow Down at La Tavola Marche Agriturismo

American Ashley Bartner's enthusiasm for life and living Italy becomes apparent as soon as she starts talking about how she and her husband, highly trained chef Jason Bartner, decided that Italy was the place for them to rent apartments at their La Tavola Marche Agriturismo.

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Fragolino Time

Fragolino Time

Fragolino is a mysterious drink. For those not in the know, fragolino is a type of grape, which gets its name from the Italian for strawberry - fragola. This grape tends to produce a wine with a sort of strawberry flavour, hence its 'fragolino' moniker.

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Carnival of Colour

Carnival of Colour

Now, I've never made it to Venice during its annual carnival, but this week's Images of Italy photo sure does make me want to go, and to take my camera with me!

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Berlusconi’s Battles

September 11, 2009 by Alex Roe · 3 Comments
Filed under: Italian news 

Tags: ,  

The scandal centred around call-girls, and one call-girl in particular, Patrizia D’Addario, is continuing to dog Italy’s prime minister.

Attempts to scare the Italian press into not covering events and accusations have had some effect, in that one leading journalist, Dino Boffo, the editor of Vatican publication Avvenire, decided to resign after what many suspect was a Berlusconi instigated counter-attack.  Well, the offensive against a journalist who had spoken ill of Italy’s premier was launched via a Berlusconi family newspaper, Il Giornale, so it is not a huge surprise that people think Berlusconi pulled a few strings.

One victory does not mean that the war is won though.  Indeed, Berlusconi needs to win on several fronts.  While the resignation of the editor represents one victory, there are some indications that other aspects that the war of Italy’s number one politician is waging against his opponents  is floundering.

Here are some of the fronts which Berlusconi is trying to defend himself against.

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Is Life in Italy So bad?

September 2, 2009 by Alex Roe · 25 Comments
Filed under: Italy 

Tags: , ,  

At the end of the day, despite bickering politicians and dodgy organisation, life in Italy is not that bad.

Beautiful Italy

Beautiful Italy

Certainly up here in Milan things work.  The ride is a bit bumpy at times and things could be better organised, but if you get ill, you get treated – for free.  Children do get an education, almost for free, and the streets of Italy, with one or two exceptions, are not exactly violent – just ask one or two Americans for some examples of really rough streets.

Years of creative accounting have left many Italians with decent stashes in the bank, and even today Italians seem to be able to buy houses with quite short term mortgages, if they bother with a mortgage at all.  Said houses will be filled with spanking new furniture, but only after many thousands of Euros have been spent on giving the new pad a ground-up make-over.  Quite the opposite from the UK, for example -where 100% mortgages have been on the scene for many years.  And many people do their houses up bits at a time – not in one go, as in Italy.

There is more to demonstrate that life in Italy is not a huge torture.

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Berlusconi Lashes Out

August 29, 2009 by Alex Roe · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Italian news 

Tags: ,  

Observers in Italy commented on how Silvio Berlusconi went rather quiet over the August summer break this year.  Berlusconi was not relaxing though, he was, by the sounds of things, a plotting and a scheming.

Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi

In a clear sign that the holiday ‘ceasefire’ is now over, Mr Berlusconi has launched a series of attacks on those who have dared criticise him.

In the line of Berluconi’s fire are an Italian newspaper, the Vatican, and Italian television.

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