The Local

The Italian govement will host next year's Group of Seven summit in June in the southe region of Puglia at a resort known for staging celebrity weddings. , ...ادامه مطلب

Venice's tourist hotspots have been accused of ripping off visitors. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP. The mayor of Venice has criticized visitors who complain that the city is too expensive, accusing them of being cheap. “You’re welcome but yo, ...ادامه مطلب

From November 13th-19th, you can stay for free in one of thousands of Italian B&Bs. The catch? You need to 'barter' with the hoteliers, offering them a product or service in exchange for your visit. November 2017 sees the ninth edit, ...ادامه مطلب

The view from the palazzo Seneca in Norcia. Photo: Palazzo Seneca.A hotel in Norcia, Umbria, where a deadly earthquake destroyed much of the town in October 2016, has been named Best Hotel in 2017 by a prestigious luxury tourism association. Parts of the town centre are still pulverized and many of its residents still live in temporary accommodation.Yet only a few hundred metres away is the newly-crowned best luxury tourism hotel of the year, Palazzo Seneca. The hotel was named Best Hotel of 2017 at the Virtuoso Tourism Awards ceremony on August 16th in Las Vegas. "This award recognizes a beau, ...ادامه مطلب

A hotelier in southe Italy reportedly tued a couple away from his hotel because of their skin colour, in what appears to be another racist incident in the tourism industry. Cristobal Rojas, an Italian citizen of Cuban origin who works at Milan Malpensa Airport, had booked beach accommodation for Italy's mid-summer holiday, Ferragosto. "When the owner saw us, he said we had to leave because he does not accept dark-skinned guests," Rojas told Repubblica.  The Rojas were able to find alteative accommodation in the thermal town of Margherita di Savoia, Puglia, where they had spent several su, ...ادامه مطلب

Photo: Twitter.An Italian toilet icon in southe Italy has upset the LGBT community. A hotel establishment in Cavallino near the southe Italian city of Lecce has created a storm with its unusual toilet icons, three to be precise; a woman, a man, and a "gay" man.  "The word had been covered up but, ...ادامه مطلب

A homosexual couple were forced to cancel their holiday at a Calabrian guesthouse after the owner told them, via Whatsapp, that gays and animals are not allowed. Massimo Arcangeli was clarifying details of the couple’s stay with the owner of the family-run guesthouse in Santa Maria, a hamlet near th, ...ادامه مطلب

A homosexual couple were forced to cancel their holiday at a Calabrian guesthouse after the owner told them, via Whatsapp, that gays and animals are not allowed. Massimo Arcangeli was clarifying details of the couple’s stay with the owner of the family-run guesthouse in Santa Maria, a hamlet near th, ...ادامه مطلب

Exactly 150 years after Sicilian Nobel laureate Luigi Pirandello's birth, fellow Sicilian and contemporary crime writer Andrea Camilleri recalls the strange jouey the playwright's ashes undertook over the years. Several events in the city of Agrigento in Sicily are set to commemorate the 150th ann, ...ادامه مطلب

Idioms - those little stock expressions whose meanings aren't what they first seem - are often the hardest part of leaing a new language. And Italian has an abundance of the confusing sayings. This means that you can understand every word that someone is saying to you, and yet still not have a clu, ...ادامه مطلب

Ordinary household objects become art in the Ettore Guatelli museum. Photo: Leo Orlandini/Wikimedia Creative CommonsItaly's museums are home to some of the world's best-loved cultural treasures, and there's no shortage of art or artefacts to admire. But sometimes you want a change from the usual Rom, ...ادامه مطلب

A view over popular tourist destination Venice. File photo: vitormarigo/DepositphotosIn its latest move aimed at cutting down on excessive visitor numbers, Venice's mayor's office on Thursday gave the green light to a ban on new tourist accommodation in the city's historic centre. Venetian councillo, ...ادامه مطلب

Venice's Grand Canal: a must-see, or an unromantic stretch of stinky water?Photo: Kosala Bandara/FlickrOK, we're biased, but it's hard to imagine how anyone could visit Italy and not fall in love with the country. From beautiful mountains to sandy Mediterranean beaches, with plenty of art, history, culture and delicious food - there's a reason it's been the muse of generations of artists. The country's monuments are world-famous and for good reason, but that doesn't stop some people finding fault. Of course, long queues or stifling heat can make a holiday stressful, but some TripAdvisor users had more specific complaints, having made the trip to the bel paese only to leave feeling let down, or even confused, by some of its gems.  Here's a selection of reviews from people who didn't quite get Italy. The Leaning Tower of Pisa Leaning Tower of Pisa. By Fabio Muzzi/AFP 'Dreadful.' 'Not even straight.' Rabbit beach, Lampedusa Photo: By Marco Molino 'Misleading... I spent all day walking up,strange hotel complaints ...ادامه مطلب

Pokémon arrived in Italy in July. Photo: Jim Watson/AFPA luxury hotel chain in Tuscany is offering psychological support to guests addicted to Pokémon GO, the smartphone-based version of the classic monster-fighting game that was released in Italy in July. Salvatore Madonna, the CEO of Soft Living Places, which has five-star hotels in Forte de Marmi, a beach town popular among the world’s rich, and Viareggio, said that dependency on the game “knows no social barriers”. And so the company, which in the past has offered therapy for those obsessed with iPhones and other forms of technology, has brought in the services of multi-lingual psychologists. "We're seeing billionaires, Sheikhs, Emirs, their wives and children, Russian oligarchs and Italian industrialists hunting virtual creatures in the swimming pool, or in corridor and reception,” Madonna added.  “This is why I've decided to provide my clients with counsellors, who can intervene in cases of a more pronounced illness.,italian hotel chains,italian hotel chains in rome,italian hotel chain in london,italian budget hotel chains,italian luxury hotel chains,best italian hotel chain,top italian hotel chains ...ادامه مطلب

Make even a slight effort to speak Italian, chances are you’ll have uttered at least one of these already today. But you probably weren’t aware of the strange story behind how that word came to be. Just like every other aspect of its culture, from architecture to food, every word in the Italian language bears traces of the country's long history. Here are the strange stories behind seven everyday words. Ciao - hi/byeProbably the most famous word in the Italian dictionary, the informal greeting has been exported all over the world. But you may not have realized that it comes from the term 'schiavo' (slave). The Latin greeting 'servus humillimus' ('your obedient slave) was used when speaking with a superior, and in Venetian dialect this became 's-ciao vostro' - literally translating as 'your slave'. The word 'schiavo' doesn't come from 'servus', but from the Latin 'sclavus' ('slave'), which is thought to have its origins in the term 'Slavic', as Slavs this was the ethnicity of most slaves at the time. Over the years, the 's' was dropped from 's-ciao', giving us the mode form 'ciao' - which is no longer seen as having any deferential meaning or reference to ethnicity, and is used as an all-purpose informal greeting. Casa - house Photo: Katrin Svabo Bech In Latin, the word for house was 'domus', and this term has left traces in mode Italian in words like 'domestico' ('domestic'), as well as in Sardinia, where 'domo' means 'house' (the Italian dialects are, in fact, not descendants or variants on standard Italian, but languages which evolved independently from Latin). 'Casa' existed in Latin too, but it referred to a cottage, hut or hovel. So how did it come to mean 'house'?The answer for this is that when people began building cathedrals in the Middle Ages, they needed a word to distinguish them from plain old churches. Instead of coming up with a new term, they called them 'domus dei' (God's house), which was soon shortened to 'domus'. But this led to a new problem as, ...ادامه مطلب