ItalyUpdate

Josè Rallo, CEO of the Sicilian wine company Donnafugata, acted as official hostess for the Bio-Mediterranean Cluster pavilion at EXPO 2015 during the opening week of the mega-event.

The Italian Alpine Club (CAI) of Castellanza (Lombardy) is celebrating the 150^th anniversay of the conquest of Mt. Cervino, known in English as the Matterhorn, the pinnacle mountain that straddles the Alps between Italy and Switzerland.

The royal elephant Fritz has made a figurative return to life at the Royal Hunting Lodge at Stupinigi, Turin, for an exhibition on the zoo that the Savoy family kept in the park in the 19^th century, entitled: Fritz. An Elephant at Court.

The Rome we know today would not be the same without the century of Baroque art that remodelled and revolutionized the face of the city during the 17^th century.  This is the theme chosen by the Foundation Roma-Arte-Musei (Musarte), the cultural branch of the Foundation Rome, for its latest exciting exhibition on the art of the Eternal City, following the Quattrocento Romano in 2008, the Settecento (20109 and the Cinquecento (2011).

Italian dignitaries attending the opening ceremony for EXPO Milan were startled to hear the children's choir sing a different version of the Italian national anthem. In the last line of the chorus, written by 20 year old patriot Goffredo Mameli in 1847, the phrase we are ready for death was substituted for we are ready for life.

 

Hotel “Agli Scacchi”, Preci, Umbria

 

Set in the heart of Preci, one of Umbria's most charming villages, the “Agli Scacchi” hotel is a perfect base for nature lovers wishing to explore the unspoiled wilds of the Sibillini National Park. The hotel, a historic residence once belonging to the Scacchi family, a dynasty of doctors and surgeons celebrated all over Europe during the 16^th and 17^th centuries,

 

The annual CastigliondiPrimavera (Spring Festival) at Castiglione della Pescaia (Grosseto, Tuscany) - 7th-10^th May 2015 - could not but choose as its central theme: EXPO 2015 Feed the Planet. Considered to be one of Italy's most charming Mediterranean villages, Castiglione's spring event will be held along the sea front, under the shadow of the medieval castle.

Woody Allen revived the trend, popular with American movie directors in the Dolce Vita days, of using Rome as a film set when he filmed “To Rome With Love” in 2012. Earlier this year, James Bond, alias Daniel Craig, immortanized hair-raising car chases in Rome's historic centre for “Spectre”, the 24^th in the spy series.

The popular seaside resort of Bibione (Veneto) is to host this year's Fisherman's Friend Strongmanrun, hailed as the world's toughest fun race. Sponsored by Fisherman's Friend, manufacturers of the famous throat-protecting lozenges, invented in Britain in 1865 for fishermen working in the icy and stormy conditions of the North Sea,

Unsung heroes of the First World War will be spotlighted as part of the Italian centenary commemorations at the OPEN Gallery in Mestre (Venice) between the 5^th - 30^th May 2015 with a photographic exhibition entitled: 1914/18: the war and the animals. Silent troopers at the service of the army..