Italy has a history that encapsulates many elements of the Roman Catholic Church; Rome is at the centre of its origins and development and is the point where the religion began to establish and disperse itself through Europe. So it is only natural to assume Italy is a staunchly Catholic country. Right? Like many other…
Continue reading ➞ Flamboyant Italians: Cicciolina
Life is always a challenge for an ex-pat living in Italy. There is a constant struggle with the language, continually being reminded of an outsider by snide remarks and condescending quips about your accent. Yet ex-pats develop a thick skin and put up with many frustrations so we can soak up the beauty, way of…
Continue reading ➞ An introduction to Flamboyant Italian personalities
Sitting on the bumpy, stony Sicilian beach I soak up the eccentric backdrop. This isn’t a beach; it is a rock mine, full of large pebbles, boulders and blocks of concrete dropped along the coast to create artificial barriers between the shoreline and the eroding sea. You can’t dive into the water without putting yourself…
Continue reading ➞ Italians going to the beach
I often exchange stories with other ex-pats about the Italians who have lied and cheated us with ease and nonchalance which is both infuriating and puzzling. Not to say other countries don’t have problems with corruption as the world is rife, but in most Anglo-Saxon countries a politician or public servant or any other…
Continue reading ➞ The complexity of Italy’s cheating heart
The San Remo Italian song Festival is classic Italian television at its best wonderfully hyperactive, ostentatious, trashy and irrational all at the same time. This year the festival is in its sixty-fifth edition making it a dinosaur compared to the continually evolving landscape of the small screen. San Remo is always filled with controversy as…
Continue reading ➞ A basic guide to the San Remo Festival
Sometimes, living in Italy is like being inside an awful soap opera; it's a vibrant, quirky, melodramatic place filled with controversies, corruption, and paradoxes. Italy is a place of great beauty, creativity and unique experiences, overshadowed by equally abhorrent ugliness, criminality and hypocrisy. The Italian people themselves manifest these conflicting traits. I have come across…
Continue reading ➞ Flamboyant Italians: Vittorio Sgarbi
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