The Local

Italy isn't the easiest country to understand, and whether you're living here or just visiting, outsiders can find it a challenge. From frequent strikes to baffling bureaucracy, we look at some of the most common complaints and how to solve them. ...

A privacy campaign group on Monday lodged complaints against Elon Musk's X in eight European countries over conces it was "feeding" users' personal data into its AI technology without their consent. ...

Inflation may now be falling but the price of a summer holiday in Italy has risen again - by up to 20 percent compared to last year. ...

Joualists at Italy's RAI public broadcaster went on strike on Monday, complaining about staffing issues and political influence under Giorgia Meloni's hard-right govement. ...

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. ...

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...

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...

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...

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-skied 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...

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...

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...

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...

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 a...

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...

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...

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...

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, ...

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 Madoa, 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, the...