Tuscany is rightly recognised as being one of the world’s most beautiful regions – here we highlight ten of our favourite destinations that justify this claim… 1. BAGNO VIGNONI HOT SPRINGS, VAL D’ORCIA While traditional towns may have a main town square in their centre, in Bagno Vignoni it is simply a huge thermal pool. […]
The olive harvest is something everyone should see at least once. If you have never experienced it yourself now is the time to earn your share of this year’s crop… Spirit of Italy Holidays Guests will visit an olive pressing facility and bring home a bottle of oil. Harvest Italia 2014, presented by Spirit of […]
World Dance Movement returns to Italy this weekend, for three weeks of classes, galas, competition and performance in the beautiful Puglian town of Castellana Grotte. The study-vacation event introduces dancers and educators to an international faculty of great talent. World Dance Movement is a leader in the international dance scene – a respected source for […]
Charlotte Jaconelli and partner Jonathan Antoine finished as runners-up in Britain’s Got Talent in 2012. What is she up to now? Charlotte talks to My Italia! Do you ever wake up thinking it must all be a dream? Oh definitely, that’s the only way you can describe it. No matter how much experience you have […]
Michelangelo’s David still standing… on fractured ankles Bad posture can lead to joint problems in the fittest of us, and standing slouched against a tree stump for over half a millennium seems to have caught up with Michelangelo’s statue of David. Scientists have discovered “micro-fractures on the lower part of both legs”, likely caused by […]
My mother in law remembers shopping for shoes at Ferragamo in Florence many moons ago and Salvatore Ferragamo would be there with his leather apron around his waist. The shop is still the same, located in the magnificent Palazzo Spini Feroni, built in the 13th century by Geri Spini, in the most elegant area of […]
Hannah Fielding talks about the inspiration for her new romantic novel, The Echoes of Love, which is set in the splendour of Venice… What made you fall in love with Venice? Its history, grandeur and beauty. I love the red sunsets on the canal that turn the water to fire, and then Venice at […]
When Rome’s famed Cinecittà cinema studio complex opened its doors for a Fellini exhibition in 2011, visitors could walk onto film sets including replicas of a stretch of 19th century Broadway used in Gangs of New York and the sprawling ancient Roman Forum built for the BBC television series Rome. Cinecittà was built in 1937 […]
Farfalla (n.f) Butterfly. Farfalla is a strange word because, although it does derive directly from Latin, the way that it has morphed into modern Italian is unusual. The Latin, ‘papilio’, has become ‘papillon’ in French, and the word retains its ‘p’ form in Old Florentine (the basis of modern Italian), in the Bolognese, Milanese and […]
In 1659, the Medici family, now well and truly the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, sold their 1400s Renaissance home in Florence, where they had lived when they were bankers and the unofficial rulers of the Florentine Republic, to the Riccardi family. Understandably, the new owners immediately renovated. Possibly their most spectacular addition to the palazzo […]