MAPPING TUSCANY

Italy hasn’t gotten much of a good rep recently with its economic and political stagnation and the brain drain of the country’s talented youth. But not just Matteo Renzi is out there to change this. In rough times like these it's encouraging to hear that an unexpectedly high number of Italian cities joined the European Capital of Culture competition last year. The ECoC title is awarded each year to two cities from two different European countries – Umea in Sweden and Riga in Latvia are the European Capital of Cultures 2014. Italy’s turn is up again in 2019 and a fierce competition is going on right now between the participating Italian cities to secure the title. Past European capitals have proved that ECoC cities with a thought-through program receive major investments, speed up local development, and secure a long-lasting influx of culturally interested travelers - the welcome species of tourists, who prefer quality of experience to number of sights seen in a day.  Les...

Observing I taly's political panorama during election was like watching a Sergio Leone film. It's a remake of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: left wing Pier Luigi Bersani in the role of the good (but lacking the charisma to win in real life), the ugly is superbly interpreted by self-made revolutionary and comedian Beppe Grillo, and in the role of the bad - who keeps raising like a phoenix from the ashes - Silvio  Berlusconi  (will we never get rid of him?!). Women? What do you mean - women? T here's no space for females in the screenplays of a good old  Spaghetti western (apart of the occasional prostitute).  But it's not just about the male leaders of Italy's old and new political movements. Last night I switched between two of the country's main TV channels -  RAI UNO and LA 7 - to listen to the commentaries of politicians and journalists, who filled the studios to discuss election results. On RAI UNO, in the transmission of the insufferable...

Ferragosto (15th of August) is one of the main Italian holidays and together with the summer heat the perfect reason for nearly everybody to close down business. If you belong to the unfortunate ones who chose to holiday in Italy when 80% of Italians are on holiday too... prepare for the heat, the crowd and don't wonder why everything seems madly expensive. The fact that the Italian economy really sucks right now, doesn't mean that you'll be paying less for your sunbed at the beach - at least not yet...

Hurrah! It looks like after all Italians haven't been totally brain-washed yet. Read the Guardian on the vote  to get the  full picture of the amazingly positive outcome of the 4 referendums that have been voted last weekend. This is such a fantastic result, that people in my local bar suddenly feel like  talking about politics again. Things have been too depressing for too long, so why even bother?