Published on Tuesday, October 30, 2018 by Kathy McCabe Halloween in Italy has grown more popular over the past 10 years or so, especially with children excited to dress up and eat sweets. While Halloween still isn’t as big of a celebration as it is in the U.S., it is now not uncommon to hear children walking through shops and neighborhoods saying Dolcetto o scherzetto? (Trick or treat?). Refreshingly, Halloween in It...

Published on Monday, September 3, 2018 by Kathy McCabe Everyone knows Italian grandmothers make the best handmade pasta, and if you’re lucky, your nonna passed down her recipes and techniques. For the rest of us, there’s Pasta Grannies, a YouTube channel that films Italian nonne making pasta by hand, the old-fashioned way. Food writer Vicky Bennison, who is based in Le Marche and London, launched Pasta Grannies fou...

Published on Wednesday, July 4, 2018 by Kathy McCabe A section of Palatine Hill in Rome has opened to the public for the first time in centuries, allowing visitors to take in 1,200 years of the Eternal City's history. One of Rome’s seven hills, Palatine Hill overlooks the Roman Forum and the Circus Maximus in the city center, but the newly opened spot is a place where tourists can experience nature in the middle o...

Published on Tuesday, May 29, 2018 by Kathy McCabe They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and if two rare 16th-century Italian sketches could talk, their words would be “Thank goodness we’re home!” Florence’s Uffizi Galleries recently acquired the sketches, the work of Giovan Francesco Rustici and Giovanni Catesi, at an Uffizi Galleries auction at Christie’s in New York City. Both artists created t...

Published on Thursday, February 22, 2018 by Kathy McCabe In anticipation of peak summer tourist season, the Duomo cathedral complex in Florence is stepping up security measures by installing seven metal detectors in the building. The new walk-through metal detectors will replace the old handheld detectors, with the goal of reducing the time spent waiting to clear security and helping the monuments’ 1.4 million annual visi...

Published on Wednesday, November 15, 2017 by Kathy McCabe The next time you toss a coin into the Trevi Fountain in Rome, you could be unwittingly making a donation to the Roman government. Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi has announced that the coins, which can add up to more than 100 million euros!! per year, will now be used to fund city projects, which will be decided upon by a city hall working group. Since 2006, the money has ...

Published on Tuesday, October 17, 2017 by Kathy McCabe A new institute in Rome, the Caravaggio Research Institute, will dedicate itself to becoming the sole authority on everything related to the artist, who lived from 1571 to 1610. Founded as a result of a partnership between fashion brand Fendi and the Borghese Gallery, the institute will be a center of research and education to identify genuine works by the Italian mas...

Published on Friday, October 13, 2017 by Kathy McCabe In 2020, for the first time in 500 years, visitors to Venice will be able to tour one of its grandest and most important buildings. The Procuratie Vecchia housed the nine governors of La Serenissima, the Most Serene Republic, in the centuries of its greatest power, from its construction in 1532 onward. Making up one side of famed St. Mark’s Square, the Procuratie...

Published on Friday, September 29, 2017 by Kathy McCabe The best gelato flavor in the world is pistachio made by Gelateria Crispini in Spoleto, Umbria, according to a panel of judges in the Gelato World Tour. Gelato maker Alessandro Crispini concocted the winning flavor, made from three kinds of Sicilian pistachios roasted for 24 hours. Judges from the Gelato World Tour spent three years searching the globe for the bes...

Published on Saturday, July 2, 2016 by Kathy McCabe For 2,000 years, Italians have dreamed of connecting Sicily to the mainland, but various proposals to cross the 3.3-kilometer Strait of Messina through the centuries have never gotten off the ground. Now, Italians are hopeful that the newest idea, a cable car system from the Reggio Calabria airport on the mainland to the Sicilian city of Messina, will become reality. ...