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My Colombina Posted by on Feb 28, 2019

Today is the beginning of the last week of Carnevale (Carnival), which is known as settimana grassa (literally: fat week). This reminds me of my first encounter with traditional Italian Carnival characters. At that time I was attending la seconda elementare (the second year of primary school) at the Italian school in Benghazi (Libya), where…

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A Classic Italian Design – Part 2 Posted by on Jan 17, 2019

In Part 1, I wrote about the circumstances that gave rise to the world famous Vespa motor scooter. Today we’re going to look at her big sister, l’Ape. We saw the Ape in action in our recent blog, Italy’s Smallest Library, and I’m sure that if you’ve visited Il Bel Paese (Italia!) you’ll be familiar…

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A Classic Italian Design – Part 1 Posted by on Jan 15, 2019

Did you know that in 1948 an Italian wasp gave birth to a bee? At that time, Italy was still struggling to recover from the devastation caused by World War 2. Amongst the many problems that had to be dealt with was a sever shortage of mezzi di trasporto (means of transport), with many people…

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Italy’s Smallest Library Posted by on Jan 10, 2019

In our previous blog, A Positive Message For The New Year, we looked at 9 of the 33 individuals who were praised by il Presidente della Repubblica, Sergio Mattarella in his new year’s honours list. Today we’re going to focus on another fascinating individual who’s on that list: Antonio La Cava. We’d been planning to…

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The Moss Collectors Posted by on Dec 13, 2018

Here in Italy at this time of year it’s common to see people removing clumps of moss from rocks or old stone walls and placing it in a basket. When we were out walking a few days ago, for example, we spotted due suore (two nuns) in a field below us examining a terrace wall…

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Zero Kilometres Posted by on Nov 22, 2018

Here’s an irony: in an era of rising nationalistic sentiment, in which immigrants are increasingly regarded as unwelcome intruders, we seem more than happy to import all of our goods from the other side of the planet! During a recent visit to the UK, for example, we wanted to buy some garlic. Now, the medium…

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Paperwork – Part 2 Posted by on Sep 21, 2018

Here’s part 2 of the tale of my quest for a porto d’armi (dun permit). You can find part 1 HERE. Having obtained my two certificati medici (medical certificates) and my Diploma Di Idoneità Al Maneggio Delle Armi I must now pay a visit to i Carabinieri and present them with my rather impressive sheaf of…

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