Published on Tuesday, December 3, 2013 by Kathy McCabe The most popular Christmas dessert in Italy is panettone, a tall cake made from flour, sugar, milk, eggs, fruit and raisins. You will see these for sale in every food shop in Italy throughout the holiday season. One type of panettone you won't find everywhere is a gold-and-diamond version commissioned by a Russian businessman. Pastry chef Dario Hartvig, owner of th...

Published on Sunday, November 24, 2013 by Kathy McCabe Want to get into the spirit of Christmas in Italy, right here at home? If you're in New York or San Diego this holiday season, you can enjoy Cristina Fontanelli's  Christmas in Italy, a program of Italy’s best-loved songs, arias, Neapolitan and Christmas classics. Award-winning singer Fontanelli is the PBS/WNET host for Andrea Bocelli “Live From Central Park” a...

Published on Thursday, November 21, 2013 by Kathy McCabe The Catacombs of Priscilla in Rome, eight miles of tunnels off the Via Salaria, reopened to the public this week after years of restoration. Catacombs were used for Christian burial in Rome from the late 2nd century to the 4th century.  These series of burial chambers, carved out of tufo (volcanic rock), were found outside the city walls as Roman law prohibite...

Published on Friday, November 15, 2013 by Kathy McCabe The Italy Mix is a post about the most interesting Italy and Italy travel news and human interest stories around the Web each week. Here are our top picks for this week: Venice: Google Street View: How did Google captures the alleys of Venice without cars? Employees carrying backpack-mounted cameras. (The Guardian) St. Peter's Bones: For the first time in hist...

Published on Tuesday, November 12, 2013 by Kathy McCabe What do Italians do at the end of October and beginning of November? They harvest their olives. Up and down the country, huge olive producers as well as folks with just a few trees on their property bring together friends and workers to pick the olives from the trees. Once picked, they gather them up for a trip to the olive mill. As part of the Southern Go...

Published on Saturday, November 9, 2013 by Kathy McCabe Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta this week approved plans to limit cruise ship traffic in the Venice lagoon, and moving to ban giant cruise ships from the area.  Over the past decade and a half, Venice has become one of the busiest and most important cruise destinations in Europe but concerns have arisen over the safety and environmental implications o...

Published on Tuesday, November 5, 2013 by Kathy McCabe Italy is the largest consumer of bottled water. This is something you might notice when you are traveling in Italy; you're almost never offered tap water. This is a left over from many years ago when Italian tap water was considered unsafe. It is perfectly safe - all over the country, but is particularly pure and tasty in  Rome. In the Eternal City, the best wa...

Published on Friday, November 1, 2013 by Kathy McCabe When in Rome, do as the Romans do and when it comes to the lauded dessert Tiramisu, they get theirs at Pompi. Pompi is known as "Il Regno Del Tiramisù"  or "the kingdom of Tiramisu." The original location for the kingdom is a coffee shop/bar, Bar Pompi,  in Piazza Roma di Rè. This is where Romans would flock to buy a Tiramisu for a dinner party or get a swee...

Published on Monday, October 28, 2013 by Kathy McCabe I've been in the region of Puglia, in the heel of the Italian boot,  this week. The most southern part of the region is called the Salento and here they eat a favorite sweet pastry -- pasticciotto! This single-serving, crusted cake with sweet filling was born sometime in the 18th century. Of course, there is debate about where exactly this sweet treasure was in...

Published on Saturday, October 26, 2013 by Kathy McCabe Hidden beneath seven layers of paint,  a mural of trees  sketched by Leonard Da Vinci have been uncovered in a room of the Sforza Castle in Milan. Restorers working on the Now the Sala  delle Asse (Room of Planks), which Da Vinci decorated during 1498 with a mural of trees, have  uncovered hidden sections of the artist's original work, according to The Daily M...