Despite the stagnant economy, Italy is still a wonderful, beautiful place that would take many, many lifetimes to fully explore and comprehend.  And yet, for those of us who live here, sometimes it’s nice to go further abroad on vacations, and from here in the North East, the closest countries are Austria and Slovenia. Both…

In the past I have written a lot about Alitalia, Italy’s “national” airline: https://blog.therealitaly.com/?s=alitalia&submit=Search It’s emblematic of the country in more ways than one, and the inability to resolve the problem one way or the other is like a lot of things here.  Rather than letting the thing finally fail and seeing what takes its…

From il Corriere della Sera: http://www.corriere.it/cronache/11_luglio_13/licenziata-stato-vegetativo_783b9932-ad6e-11e0-83b2-951b61194bdf.shtml An unfortunate woman who has been in a coma for more than a year, and is, sadly, described as being in a “vegetative state” recently received a letter notifying her of the termination of her work contract, seeing as how she had not been to work in more than…

Being from the US, hearing weird explanations for things from religious crazies is something that's not entirely out of the ordinary, unfortunately. However, that sort of thing is generally rarer in Europe, and even in Italy, where the presence of the Catholic church is strong, they tend to limit themselves to politics and morality, rather…

Alla Camera consulta le foto delle escort The ex mayor of Bari, one of Berlusconi's supporters in the Italian parliament, was caught looking at web sites of several prostitues in parliament on his iPad. Here's the original article and some of the incriminating photos: http://www.oggi.it/focus/06-2011/deputato-caccia-escort-parlamento-307006342.shtml He was "just curious" he says.  Uh huh.

I bumped into an odd regulation the other day: http://www.padovanet.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=12606 Basically, the meat of it is that between April 15th, and October 15th, you may not use your heater for more than 7 hours a day, unless by special permission from the town government.  And even those 7 hours a day are dependant on "climatic…

Spring is my favorite time of year, and in Padova, it has its own unique sights, sounds and smells. Whereas fall clings to the last bits of light and heat that slowly drain away, spring is full of promise, and even if it’s not that warm out yet, after a long, cold winter, those first…

You’ve heard the stereotypes about Italian drivers, right? Well, there is more than a grain of truth to them. Many grains. Driving in Italy is not something that this Oregonian is much of a fan of. Of course there are plenty of good drivers, and plenty of people who do not view pedestrians as worth…

Like fall, winter is not particularly a season I care for.  You get sick a lot, and there’s less light, and therefore less time for outdoor activities like cycling, which I love. That said, winter in Padova isn’t so bad.  Well, conceptually, at least; if I could skip it, I would.  That said, though, it…

I think the “ass.” stands for “assorted” or something like that, but the end result is pretty funny: