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The author has a relationship with a city that he describes as magical. After living in Rome, he realized that everything in this place has a story: the people, the buildings, the statues, even the street corners. In this book he gathers these stories, having interviewed street performers, Romans, expats, historians and archaeologists. Reading thi...

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Euro 2020 is finally here, a year late due to covid-19, with Rome among the 11 host cities staging the 51 fixtures of the long-awaited European football championship. The rescheduled tournament kicks off in Rome's Stadio Olimpico, when Italy faces Turkey on Friday 11 June at 21.00. In line with coronavirus protocols, the stadium will host 25 per ce...

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In one of his masterpieces, Oceano Mare  (Ocean Sea), Italian novelist Alessandro Baricco describes an artist who painted the sea with sea water. I remember thinking, after reading the book for the first time, that there couldn’t be anything more poetic. Little did I know that, by looking into my own country’s long-lasting traditions, I was to enco...

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The last year and or so has taken its toll on Rome, turning a usually bustling city into what felt like a ghost town at the height of Italy's covid-19 emergency. Thankfully things are slowly returning to some semblance of normality as the situation continues to improve and the country's covid vaccination campaign steps up a gear. The city's first t...

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It’s the ultimate collection of Greek-Roman classical sculpture: the Torlonia Collection in Rome is considered the most prestigious private collection of ancient art in the world, containing as many as 620 marble pieces, including sarcophagi, busts and Greco-Roman statues. Yet, for decades, they lay abandoned in storage, known only to art specialis...

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POPE INNOCENT III’S DREAMS MUST have been troubled ones: the thought of floating and drowning babies in the Tiber River prompted him to put an end to the all-too-common practice of infant exposure which was rampant in 12th century Rome. On the side of Ospedale Santo Spirito along its external wall, a small structure sealed off by a grid contains a...

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If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? - Lewis Carroll In the enchanting, fairytale village of S. Angelo di Roccalvecce, a small, remote hamlet in the province of Viterbo,...

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I could easily stay in Rome if not for the crowds. There are aromas wafting out of different shops: bakeries, pizzerias, bars, cafés, trattorias, etc., and I feel a little twinge of hunger in my tummy. The smell of Roman-style pizza is prevailing over all others. I fancy a slice. I enjoy this style of pizza probably more than Neapolitan-style, prob...

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Rome's Fiumicino airport welcomed around 300 tourists and travellers from the USA who landed in the Italian capital on 28 May after taking covid-tested flights from New York and Atlanta. After undergoing coronavirus  screening on arrival, the tourists were greeted with gifts bags containing Made in Italy food and wine, souvenirs, tricolor bracelets...

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The Lazio region around Rome has launched a tourism campaign to entice holidaymakers into staying longer by subsidising their accommodation in the Italian capital and the surrounding area. The Più notti, più sogni initiative - which translates as 'More nights, more dreams' - was announced by Lazio governor Nicola Zingaretti yesterday evening as par...

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