Saying that I’ve been blocked is an understatement. At least in terms of writing, because, for the rest, my existence has been quite eventful. Life as a tourism worker is never stuck in a rut: trains become your legs and the luggage your home. By now I never totally unload not I put them away. As all things, this way of living has its pros and cons: it surely can be exciting, however “the thrill” can wear you down, especially when extended for a long period of time. Age plays also a more relevant role as years go by: the older you become, the higher is the crave for harmony and peace of mind ..read more

Friends, few months ago I shared a Spotify playlist composed by 30 songs I considered to be the ones that Italians see as “great classics”. Some of you have already listened to this playlist, but I thought it was about time to give some sort of context and explain what’s behind these songs and their lyrics. Given the current historical moment, today I will delve into “La Guerra di Piero” (literally “Piero’s war”) by Fabrizio De Andrè, which you might have heard in these days as TV programmes’s “jingle” if you happened to watch the Italian TV. “La Guerra di Piero” is indeed considered some sor ..read more

Let’s be honest, when we travel as tourists, we often fell into the trap of judging how locals and tourism operators behave with us, forgetting to carry out the same type of analysis to ourselves: are we trying to merge and follow the local rules or are we merely applying our own standards? Mind you, there’s a difference: there are tourists who have a sense of superiority and deliberately force their customs to the visited countries, but the majority is represented by well-meaning people who are just so used to their own country’s rules of conduct that they suppose they’re simply the same eve ..read more

I was nominated for the Outstanding Blogger Award and asked some interesting questions regarding the topics of blogging and travelling. Check the article if you’re curious about my answers! The lovely Tanja of the blog “The Red Phone Box Travels” was so kind to nominate me for the Outstanding Blogger Award. As you can gather from the blog’s name, Tanja is very fond of London, but other than about the UK capital city, she also writes about other inspiring locations she has visited over the years and her wonderful country Croatia. Head over her blog to find out more about her! But let’s answer ..read more

The archaeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum are the closest image you can get of how a town belonging to the Roman Empire worked and looked like. The devastating eruption of 79AD of Mount Vesuvius buried these cities under molten rock and ashes preserving them from the unavoidable spell cast by the course of time. Check this article in which I explain how and why you should plan a visit in these incredible time capsules. As an Italian, I grew up with the myth of Pompeii: starting from primary school, history teachers made sure to mention to us, little kids, this archaeological site in ..read more

Italians are considered to be one of the most stereotyped people in the world. But which are the generalizations they consider unfair and/or that bother them? Find out more in this article! Given that the online Italophile community is mostly populated by expat bloggers, it’s not unusual to find content that focuses on the culture shocks they get to experience once they set foot in the country. You rarely get the chance to read things from the perspective of the people who have grown up here. For example, which are the representations and beliefs about Italy widespread abroad that annoy Itali ..read more

Are you a book lover and in search of new non-fiction books about Italy? Don’t look any further, read my review of 3 works published in 2020. It’s the end of a (quite demanding) year and I thought it might to be interesting for you to have a review of newly printed non-fiction books about Italy. The books are not necessarily in English, as I wanted to give the opportunity to non-English native speakers to find something in their first language. For the reviews, though, I will keep our lingua franca ;D NEOITALIANI. UN MANIFESTO Author: Beppe Severgnini Language: Italian /Italiano Published in ..read more

Ritual breads, finely decorated loaves typical of Southern Italy, are literal works of art. Want to know how these look and where to find them? Keep reading! In these recent decades we have witnessed to the birth of artistic expressions that involve the embellishment of food and drinks, like the cappuccino art (surprisingly not an American invention, but a ‘discipline’ invented in Verona in the late 70s), but food and creativity have a long-standing relationship, which finds its roots in the tradition.  The process of making ritual bread, in particular, is so ancient that is actuall ..read more

Italy is a country that can list 200 types of bread and, as usual, every region is an independent reality with a specific set of traditional recipes. Want to travel an Italian region and try the local bread? Read this article and discover its specialities! Italian bread. I was inspired to write about it for a couple of reasons: the love of Italians for the process of making bread, renewed during the first of a series of lockdown(s), and a couple of conversations I had with you on social media. Some of you were kind of surprised when I stated that I believed bread was more important than pasta ..read more

Naples, probably along with Palermo, is the Italian capital city of the street food. Check this post to read some suggestions on what to try while in Naples and learn some history behind this custom of eating “on the go”. I’m Italian, yet I had to go through a lockdown to truly and fully realize how fundamental life in open spaces is for us. The weather, the climate, the natural predisposition to social life lead us to pass plenty of time outside, shopping in open markets, sipping aperitivo in the public piazzas and walking up and down the city centres for the struscio (or vasca, according to ..read more