Culture

Stereotypes are hard to die and they are more complex than we may think. Because if it’s very easy to dismiss them as superficial nonsense, sometimes they do hold a grain of truth, under all that silly fluff.  I don’t …

We bet you didn’t know that there is such a thing as a clock that goes backward in Florence, did you? Well, we admit it took us by surprise, too. If you want to see it, you just need to …

Underground tunnels, burial sites, places of worship, hiding spaces. Catacombs have been all that throughout their history. Many cities – the older the better, of course – have some sort of underground networks of passages and chambers, some more famous …

Banks: we all use them but have we ever thought about when and how they were created? History tells us that the earliest forms of banking – or something close to it – were practiced by the Assyrians and the …

On the 17th of January, Italians celebrate Sant’Antonio Abate, known in English as Saint Anthony of Egypt or Saint Anthony the Great. Anthony is a saint of the early Church and he is considered the first saint hermit, as well …

The Romans are known for their ingenuity: aqueducts, road systems, daily newspapers, cement, sanitation, elements of social care, welfare and our modern legal system all come from them. That’s without even taking into account their military and tactical know-how. However, …

Baci Perugina must be the best-known Italian chocolate in the world: with their silver wrapping covered in blue stars, they look like a precious stone and they are pretty enough to be gifted just like that, on their own and …

If you think about it, Verona, one of our most beautiful cities, has been made world-famous by a Briton. And certainly not a random one: William Shakespeare. The Bard – this is what the residents of the land of Albion …

Food on New Year’s Eve rhymes with tradition. In Italy, everyone knows, lentils and cotechino, a type of sausage popular especially in the northern regions of the country, are ubiquitous. This is especially because lentils have been considered a symbol …

The Petruzzelli Theater in Bari is the fourth-largest opera house in Italy and one of the most important, with La Scala in Milan, La Fenice in Venice, the Regio in Turin, the San Carlo in Naples and the Massimo in …