Some great Italian wines for a good price

Let’s think about good things. This post responds to the wide request for advice on the subject and reflects my personal opinion. So, I suggest 3 wines with an extraordinary price-quality ratio: 

🍷 Dolcetto di Dogliani - Piemonte, great bottles for under 20€

🍷 Amarone - Veneto the price varies a lot, but you can find excellent bottles for 40€

🍷 Brunello di Montalcino - Toscana, great bottles for 15 - 40€

 

Moreover, I got the following 5 tips from a very generous Twitter follower from Sweden:

 

🍷 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano

🍷 Chianti Rufina

🍷 Roero Rosso - the best Nebbiolo for under 20€ 

🍷 Etna Rosso - a very special wine from slopes of Mount Etna, reminiscent of a Bourgogne, 15-25€ 

🍷 Montefalco Sagrantino - needs some age and expect to pay around 30€, but this is often overlooked when Italian greats are discussed

Here the Tweet: 

 

Roero Rosso - the best Nebbiolo for under 20€

Etna Rosso - a very special wine from slopes of Mount Etna, reminiscent of a Bourgogne. 15-25€

Montefalco Sagrantino - needs some age and expect to pay around 30€, but this is often overlooked when Italian greats are discussed

— The Gracchi Brothers 💛❤ (@Chianti_mipiace) October 31, 2020

The capitals of Italy

Italy had 3 cities as its capital: 

• 1 Turin (1861-65) as the capital of the kingdom that led the unification of the country 

• 2 Florence (1865-71) because it has a more central position on the Italian territory 

• 3 Rome (since 1871) after it was taken militarily from the Pope

Gazette: news from Venice

Especially in these times of pandemic we follow the news on many newspapers, websites, or official journals that may have the word “Gazette” in their titles. For example: The London Gazette, The Daily Gazette, Montreal Gazette, and so on. Well, there we go with another Venetian word that became popular worldwide: Gazette. 

Back in the 16th century the weekly newspaper “La Gazeta dele novità” was edited in Venice. It was so named because it costed one Venetian coin called “Gaxeta”, in standard Italian: “Gazzetta”.

“Ciao”, “Quarantine”, “Gazette”, and the list goes on. All these words originated in Venice and they are internationally known to this very day. It may seem surprising, but let’s remember that the Republic of Venice has been a commercial power for centuries and very often idioms and words travel along the trade routes.

At the peak of the Black Death, the authorities of the port of Venice imposed a period of isolation upon the crews of arriving ships. The minimum number of days required was forty, and so the period was known in Venetian dialect as 'quarantena', from 'quaranta', 'forty'. https://t.co/WzjqERtZ2D

— Susie Dent (@susie_dent) July 23, 2020

National Parks in Italy (List and Map)

Italy has 25 National Parks * that cover 5% of its territory, and the highest level of faunal biodiversity in Europe **. Yet, it is also strongly affected by land consumption with a rate of 2 square meters per second (year 2019) ***.
I recommend a visit to these Protected Areas in order to increase their cultural and economic importance. This will help protect the Italian landscape.

Here below the list and the map:

Sources:

* Corriere della Sera: "Parchi nazionali d’Italia: 25 mete per un tuffo nella natura"; 5 febbraio 2020. 
** Tutto Green: "L’Italia è il Paese europeo con maggiore diversità biologica"; 8 aprile 2014.

*** La Repubbica: "L'Italia non ferma il consumo di suolo: due metri quadrati di nuovo cemento ogni secondo"; 20 settembre 2019.

Perché Settembre è il 9° e non il 7° mese dell'anno?

Perché i mesi autunnali hanno un nome che ricorda un numero, ma che non corrisponde a quello con cui vengono inidicati? In parole povere: perchè settembre corrisponde al numero nove, ottobre al dieci, novembre all’undici e dicembre al dodici ??? 
Ci avete sempre pensato ed è finalmente arrivato il momento di sapere come mai si sia verificato questo slittamento..

Risposta: I nomi settembre, ottobre, novembre e dicembre sono gli stessi usati dagli antichi Romani e il loro calendario partiva da marzo invece che da gennaio. Rispetto a marzo questi mesi autunnali sono quindi il settimo, l’ottavo, il nono e il decimo! 

Curiosità: gli antichi Romani avevano solo dieci mesi che iniziavano a marzo, ma il loro anno non era più breve del nostro...può sembrare incredibile, ma semplicemente non veniva conteggiato il periodo invernale tra gennaio e febbraio!

• Scopri qui il significato dei nomi dei mesi

Three Legs and a Face: the Symbol of Sicily

As a teacher, I've often experienced how most students get immediately curious about the symbol of Sicily when they first see it. The origins of this enigmatic figure are rooted in a remote past when a triple spiral motif called triskelion or triskeles was used to represent the 3 yearly phases of the Sun: Spring, Summer, and Autumn. The triskelion was known by many ancient populations in Europe and in Asia, but the Ancient Greeks reinterpreted it by transforming the spirals into legs. The rest of this article was published in my NEWSLETTER in October 2022.   Subscribe! Image sources: Coats of Arms of Sicily, Wikimedia.org Triskele, Wikimedia.org

A Postcard from the Cinque Terre

..in Vernazza

The Cinque Terre are a wonderful stretch of coast in the Linguria region, North West of Italy. It takes its name from the fact that the area includes five (Cinque) small villages (Terre) that, thanks to their peculiarities, made it become in 1997 a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the following motivation: 

The Ligurian coast between Cinque Terre and Portovenere is a cultural landscape of great scenic and cultural value. The layout and disposition of the small towns and the shaping of the surrounding landscape, overcoming the disadvantages of a steep, uneven terrain, encapsulate the continuous history of human settlement in this region over the past millennium. 

The villages of Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Monterosso and Vernazza are all linked by several scenic trekking trails - altough the worldiwide popular Via dell'Amore (the Love Walk) is currently closed - but you can also easily reach them by taking the local train for which daily tickets are available. 

You can find detailed information about excursions and transportation on this site: 

https://www.cinqueterre.eu.com/en/cinque-terre-card

And here you can read the complete description of the Cinque Terre, by UNESCO: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/826

Map of the most beautiful beaches in Italy 2019

If you are planning your holiday on the marvelous Italian seaside, but you still need some suggestion to organize your trip here you can find some help. This is the list and the map of the 10 most beautiful beaches in Italy, according to Travellers' Choice Awards - TripAdvisor. Have fun and relax!

 

1. Spiaggia dei Conigli (Rabbit Beach), Lampedusa, Sicilia
2. Spiaggia di Cala Rossa, Isola di Favignana, Isole Egadi, Sicilia
3. Spiaggia di Tropea, Tropea, Calabria
4. Cala Mariolu a Baunei, Ogliastra, Sardegna
5. Baia del Silenzio, Sestri Levante, Liguria
6. Cala Goloritzè a Baunei, Ogliastra, Sardegna
7. Spiaggia di Cala Coticcio, Caprera, Arcipelago della Maddalena, Sardegna
8. Cala Sinzias, Castiadas, Sardegna
9. Spiaggia Chia Su Giudeu, Domus de Maria, Sardegna
10. Spiaggia della Marinella, Palinuro, Campania

Un saluto al maestro Andrea Camilleri

source: Wikimedia Commons 
by SERSTE

Renowned Italian writer Andrea Camilleri, prolific author and creator, among others, of the very well-known “Commissario Montalbano,” passed away this morning.

A brilliant and skillful narrator, he began his career as a stage director in the late 1940s, and later worked as a productor for RAI, the national Italian broadcasting company.

His debut as a writer dates back to 1978, yet his first novel, Il corso delle cose (The Way Things Go), did not find a great success. The first of the fortunate series of novels starring the “Commissario Montalbano,” La forma dell'acqua (The Shape of Water), was published in 1994. The character of the Commissario, and with it Camilleri's own name, quickly gained recognition all over Italy and abroad.

A success that was further boosted by the popularity of the TV series based on the investigations of the Commissario, who is played on the screen by actor Luca Zingaretti.

Source image: Wikimedia Commons

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Andrea_Camilleri?uselang=de#/media/File:Andrea_Camilleri,_cassatina_sulla_terrazza_a_Marinella.jpg)

Planning to visit the Uffizi? Avoid the queue!

La nascita di Venere - Sandro Botticelli

If you are planning to visit Florence soon, you should definitely pay a visit to one of its principal (and most beautiful) museums, the Galleria degli Uffizi. You'll have the chance to admire a rich collection of art masterpieces, hosted in one of the most beautiful piazze of the city.

The Galleria degli Uffizi welcomes thousands of tourists from all over the world all year round, reaching a peak in the summer months. Therefore, especially if yours is going to be a short visit, make sure you book your tickets in advance – and you can forget the queue! Also, if you are visiting between June and August, you will spare yourself a long wait in the Florentine humid heat.

For further information, visit: https://www.uffizi.it/en/pages/how-to-book-tickets
 

Buone vacanze!