Forget the Sopranos, watch out for shady grannies in Italy
By Carol Pucci - Seattle Times staff columnist
ROME — Thinking of a trip to Italy soon? You won't be going alone. The land of Leonardo and caffè latte ranks among the top foreign destinations for Americans, travel writers included.
Having just spent several weeks showing relatives the major sites, followed by some time reporting on new destinations in the south, I'm more excited than ever about the possibilities beyond tourist-clogged Venice, Florence and Rome.
Now here's the part you don't hear much about: In almost every Italian city that attracts large numbers of foreign visitors, traveler scams abound, to an extent unlike in any other Western European country I know.
I found much less of this in Naples and in the southern towns and villages of Molise and Apulia where locals still seem to view tourists more as curiosities than walking wallets, but that may change as these areas are discovered.
When it comes to the big Italian cities, forget the Mafia. Keep an eye on people such as the grandmotherly type with the heavy thumb I spotted near the Vatican pricing her pizza by weight rather than the slice.
Shortchanging is common. So is overcharging. One news report carried a story about a tourist from Hong Kong being billed $1,251 for a beer on the swank Via Veneto in Rome where beers usually cost around $13.
He bartered the price down to $640, then paid, according to the report, telling police he was scared something might happen if he didn't. "Hidden costs" creep in for everything from sitting down at a table to drink a coffee or a beer to increasingly higher "bread and table cloth" cover charges in restaurants.
Still, we go, as we should. Italy ranks among the top five destinations for U.S. residents going abroad, and for the past three years has been the most popular international destination for Americans on package tours, reports the United States Tour Operators Association.
There's no country in the world that offers a more magical combination of food, art, culture and the chance to meet and talk with local people simply by sitting down at the next table or stopping to ask directions.
With that in mind, here are a few tips for avoiding paying more than you need to, especially in light of the ever-sinking value of the U.S. dollar.
Count your change: Short-changing works like this: You use a five-euro note to pay for a one-euro bus ticket or any small item at a magazine kiosk or tobacco store. Instead of handing you four, one-euro coins, the clerk throws down a pile of small change. There are people in line behind you. Everyone's in a hurry. You don't bother to count the coins, and may never realize you've been shorted. The clerk collects an extra euro per customer.
Resist offers to pay with a credit card "in your own currency:" Some hotels and rental-car agencies are offering to convert charges from euros to dollars on the spot as a "convenience." They profit by processing the bill through at a 6 to 7 percent lower exchange rate, and pocketing the difference as their fee.
Never pay a street vendor's first, or even second, asking price: My sister-in-law was shopping for glass rosaries outside the Vatican Museum. She first saw them at a stall for $23 each. When she seemed interested, the vendor immediately lowered his price to $10. She ended up paying about $5 each.
Watch the scales: Pizza is usually sold by the slice at snack shops for about $1.50 to $2 — a good deal — but beware of vendors who price their slices by the weight. I ended up paying $7 one day because I didn't notice the price was per kilo, not per slice. It was good pizza with fresh mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and basil, but not worth $7.
Check the price to sit down: Always determine the cost of a beer, soft drink or coffee before sitting down at a café table. Most cafés have different prices for standing at the bar vs. "a tavola." Italians are used to paying a little more to relax at a table, but some cafes in tourist areas jack up the prices three times as much. Look for or ask for the "lista dei prezzi" or price list, which by law must be posted. Some cafés have begun to blank out the "a tavola" price. If that's the case, ask a waiter.
Say what you want: Specify what size beer or drink you want. Otherwise expect to be served the biggest and most expensive. Same goes with gas. With gas at $7 per gallon in Italy, I made this mistake only once, paying 95 cents more per gallon for premium because I didn't specify regular.
Avoid the tourist traps: Avoid places like the one I spotted near the Pantheon in Rome with a sign advertising that "We have homemade ice cream." Signs such as "English spoken here" and "Menu turistica" — a set menu and price — may sound comforting, but usually they're code for "We charge more for inferior quality and hope you won't know any better."
Lets-Travel-Rome.com
CGI documentary brings Rome back to life
Friday May 12 13:35 AEST
Computer-generated imagery (CGI), until now, has been reserved for big budget Hollywood movies.
America's History Channel claims to be one of the first networks to use CGI for a television documentary - Rome: Engineering an Empire.
"In the past, CGI was really restricted to big budget movies," said Dolores Gavin, director of History Channel programming.
"But the cost of CGI animation has just dropped dramatically.
"It would be nearly impossible for us to have done the show even three years ago because the technology just wouldn't have been available to us."
Rome: Engineering an Empire charts the rise and fall of the Roman Empire from 500BC to 55AD, marking successes and failures with a focus on engineering developments.
Rome was the most powerful and advanced civilisation in the world for more than 500 years, covering the reigns of emperors Vespasian, Trajan, Hadrian, Nero and of course, Julius Caesar.
The documentary looks at various engineering feats such as the Colosseum, or the Flavian Amphitheatre as it was first known, and an early Roman shopping mall.
Instead of showing footage of Roman ruins, the documentary makers have recreated the monuments using CGI, something that differentiates the program from the many other documentaries on Rome.
CGI is the technology used by filmmakers to create scenes that would be too expensive or impossible to recreate in live action.
Various Roman aqueducts have been recreated, as has the Pantheon, Baths of Caracalla and Hadrian's Wall.
The process has caused some concern in historical circles with a number of experts believing people might mistake the recreations for exact replicas.
Others have argued that the program could not be labelled a documentary and should be referred to as fiction.
Gavin said she could understand the argument but that the CGI was used simply to illustrate the magnitude of the successes in Roman engineering.
"In the documentary world, this has been the subject of much discussion and debate," she said.
"There is a school of thought that believes that any recreations using CGI is not really considered documentary.
"But there is another school of thought that says that that is part of what we consider to be a documentary."
Gavin feels very strongly about the argument.
"CGI is one of many tools available to filmmakers to be able to tell this very compelling story about the past," she said.
"And I don't as a rule say that CGI or that reconstruction must be in every show, because there are documentaries for which those two things were not appropriate."
Rome: Engineering an Empire screened in the United States last year and premiered in Italy in April.
The program will be seen around the world this month, including on pay TV's Foxtel in Australia, and has been so successful that the History Channel has commissioned a whole series based on engineering.
They've just finished production on Egypt: Engineering and Empire with further programs to focus on the Mayan people, Khmer, Persians, Byzantines and Aztecs.
Gavin said CGI would be used in some of the upcoming programs, but not all.
"It is used as a tool and a tool that we think through and use very carefully to ensure that we can tell the story in a different way," she said.
"It really is a case by case basis, but I think it is a wonderful tool that any filmmaker should be free to use."
Director Chris Cassel will be working on the entire series.
While interested in history, Cassel is the first to admit he isn't an expert.
"We passed it past many scholars, just to ensure the accuracy of it," said Cassel.
Cassel was fascinated at how the Romans created an intricate aqueduct system to transport more than 200 million gallons of running water into Rome each day.
That is equivalent to the amount of water provided to the city of New York in 1985.
The documentary also looks at many of the secrets of Rome's architectural proficiency - the use of durable, waterproof concrete that still sustains many of the city's key structures.
It was also important to Cassell that the documentary look at some of the more interesting personal moments in Roman history.
One interesting fact to emerge was that Emperor Vespasian is credited with being the first leader to introduce pay toilets in Rome.
"I am really interested in all the juicy stuff like how Nero decapitated his wife," he said.
"The response we got from the audience in the United States showed very much that people were just as interested in the juicier parts of the story as they were in the rest."
* Rome: Engineering an Empire airs on Foxtel's History Channel
For more on ancient Rome, go to this link:
Lets-Travel-Rome.com/Ancient-Rome
"Da Vinci Code" breaks Italian box office records
The movie adaptation of Dan Brown's bestseller earned 2 million euros ($2.6 million) on its opening night, nearly double the takings of Italy's previous top film, Oscar-winner Roberto Benigni's "Life is Beautiful".
"The Da Vinci Code" has broken box office records in Roman Catholic Italy as tens of thousands of Italians ignored Vatican calls to boycott the film. The movie adaptation of Dan Brown's bestseller earned 2 million euros ($2.6 million) on its opening night, nearly double the takings of Italy's previous top film, Oscar-winner Roberto Benigni's 1997 tragi-comic Holocaust drama "Life is Beautiful".
Italian news agencies reported record queues around the country to see the film of the novel that ignited Vatican ire by saying Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene and the Catholic Church hushed this up.
Millions worldwide are expected to flock to see the film on its opening weekend, shrugging off protests by Christian groups and tepid reviews at its Cannes film festival premier this week.
Many Christians across the world believe the theories in "The Da Vinci Code" are blasphemous, and the Vatican has led an offensive against the book and the film, calling for a boycott.
Members of ultra-Catholic group, Christian Militants, picketed some cinemas in central Rome, close to the Vatican, chanting "Dan Brown remember you will also be judged by Christ". Many Italians are fans, however, buying tens of thousands of the more than 40 million copies of the books sold worldwide.
Italy's tourist industry has also leapt on the Dan Brown boom. Special tours are running in Rome and to the church in Milan containing Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper", a painting central to "The Da Vinci Code" plot.
Florence, where the Renaissance master lived, is holding a series of exhibitions throughout the European summer focused on cracking the code of Da Vinci's paintings and designs.
Lets-Travel-Rome.com
Tens of thousands honor John Paul II at Vatican
VATICAN CITY
Tens of thousands of pilgrims flooded St. Peter's square to pay their respects to Pope John Paul II, who died a year ago Sunday after a long and publicly fought battle with a series of illnesses.
Pope Benedict XVI, John Paul's longtime aide, said his predecessor had left an "immense" legacy to the church and to the world.
"John Paul died as he lived, moved by an indomitable courage of faith," said Benedict, who went on to describe the dignity with which John Paul II confronted his suffering in the last years of his life.
"In the final years, God gradually stripped him of everything so as to assimilate him fully. And when he could no longer travel and then not even walk and finally not even talk, his gesture was reduced to the essential: a gift of himself to the last instant."
The Italian authorities had enacted various security measures in anticipation of an expected 150,000 visitors. Early Sunday morning, only patches of pilgrims were present on St. Peter's Square. But by the time Benedict delivered his noon address the square was crowded.
"He is a hero for me as a human being, not only as a pope," said Anita Szremska, 43, who arrived in Rome on Wednesday after a 26-hour bus ride from Poland. "He showed us how to live, how to think and how to look at people. He was a good man."
A line of visitors waiting to pay their respects at John Paul's tomb - in a grotto under St. Peter's Basilica - coiled through the square. The president of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, was one of the first to visit the tomb early Sunday morning. By mid-morning it took approximately two hours to get a brief glimpse of the burial place.
Remembrance in hometown
Thousands of believers flocked to John Paul's hometown of Wadowice in southern Poland on Sunday, The Associated Press reported.
The main square was decorated for the occasion with yellow and white papal banners, along with national and local flags. A large picture of John Paul also hung from St. Mary's Basilica, where the future pope was baptized as Karol Wojtyla in 1920.
An open-air Mass in the town at noon drew an estimated 8,000 people in the town of 37,000.
President Lech Kaczynski laid flowers and prayed at the basilica, telling reporters that John Paul II's pontificate had "an influence on my life, moral values and on the evolution of my views."
VATICAN CITY Tens of thousands of pilgrims flooded St. Peter's square to pay their respects to Pope John Paul II, who died a year ago Sunday after a long and publicly fought battle with a series of illnesses.
Pope Benedict XVI, John Paul's longtime aide, said his predecessor had left an "immense" legacy to the church and to the world.
"John Paul died as he lived, moved by an indomitable courage of faith," said Benedict, who went on to describe the dignity with which John Paul II confronted his suffering in the last years of his life.
"In the final years, God gradually stripped him of everything so as to assimilate him fully. And when he could no longer travel and then not even walk and finally not even talk, his gesture was reduced to the essential: a gift of himself to the last instant."
The Italian authorities had enacted various security measures in anticipation of an expected 150,000 visitors. Early Sunday morning, only patches of pilgrims were present on St. Peter's Square. But by the time Benedict delivered his noon address the square was crowded.
"He is a hero for me as a human being, not only as a pope," said Anita Szremska, 43, who arrived in Rome on Wednesday after a 26-hour bus ride from Poland. "He showed us how to live, how to think and how to look at people. He was a good man."
A line of visitors waiting to pay their respects at John Paul's tomb - in a grotto under St. Peter's Basilica - coiled through the square. The president of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, was one of the first to visit the tomb early Sunday morning. By mid-morning it took approximately two hours to get a brief glimpse of the burial place.
Remembrance in hometown
Thousands of believers flocked to John Paul's hometown of Wadowice in southern Poland on Sunday, The Associated Press reported.
The main square was decorated for the occasion with yellow and white papal banners, along with national and local flags. A large picture of John Paul also hung from St. Mary's Basilica, where the future pope was baptized as Karol Wojtyla in 1920.
An open-air Mass in the town at noon drew an estimated 8,000 people in the town of 37,000.
President Lech Kaczynski laid flowers and prayed at the basilica, telling reporters that John Paul II's pontificate had "an influence on my life, moral values and on the evolution of my views."
For more infor mation on The Vatican in Rome, go to
Lets-Travel-Rome.com/Vatican
Traveling to Italy? Pack Your Own Expert Guide.
ROME, May 4 /PRNewswire/ --
Visitors to Italy can now have their own personal tour accompanied by people who know the places more than anyone else in the world. Well, almost.
An American company offers its ARTineraries Tours of sites throughout the country, downloadable from CDs or through the web. Their tours promise you an "insider's point of view" of the places and persons who made these cities and museums what they are today.
Visitors to the city of Turin (site of the Winter Olympics) will be greeted by the 16th Century architect Amedeo Castellamonte, who will take visitors along the streets of Turin in a 1-hour journey of discovery of the secrets and sights of the places he knew well. Castellamonte, along with his father, designed much of Baroque Turin and his tales of the Royal Savoy family and of the chocolatiers, counts and mystics there will keep you wanting more.
At the Vatican, renowned art historian Sister Wendy Beckett (of PBS and BBC fame) will be your personal guide in over 90 minutes of audio which includes the wonders of the Vatican Museums and some of the greatest art in the world. Once in the Sistine Chapel, Sister Wendy gives her unique and passionate interpretation of Michelangelo's entire masterpiece, before guiding visitors through the marvels of St. Peter's Basilica.
Sister Wendy's personal approach and entertaining descriptions along with her heartfelt insights add to the experience and allow visitors to see the Vatican collection as it has never been seen (or heard) before. In Sister Wendy's words, "The Vatican is a place where even the corridors are masterpieces."
Travelers can purchase a 2 CD set of the ARTineraries(TM) Tour, and simply upload the tracks onto their mobile mp3 players or iPod, or download the ARTineraries Tour onto their devices directly from the ARTineraries website
ARTineraries.com . Each tour comes with a special "insider's guide" and complete listing of the tour stops.
ARTineraries Tours were developed by Art&Media Communications, the company which introduced the first downloadable digital tours in Italy. ARTineraries productions are overseen by founder, American Lisa Tucci, who has over 10 years experience in producing audioguides for Italian museums, many recognized as "must-dos" on the travel circuit. Says Tucci, "It seemed appropriate to pair the latest cutting edge technology with some of the most historic places on Earth, and who better to accompany you than people whose insights will make your trip truly a memorable one."
More ARTineraries tours are scheduled to be released this summer including a "Da Vinci Code" Tour of Paris, with stops in London, Edinburgh and Milan, Italy's Great Basilicas (including Venice, Florence, Rome and Assisi), and Monumental Rome.
Lets-Travel-Rome.com - For all the news and deals when you want to travel to Rome.
Today in Italy.
Special service by AGI on behalf of the Italian Prime Minister's office
SMOKING: 37 PCT OF PARENTS AWARE TEENAGE CHILD SMOKES
(AGI) - Rome, May 4 - Thirty-seven percent of Italian parents know that their adolescent child smokes. But only 3 parents out of ten manage to get them to stop, 1 out of 10 simply become resigned to the fact. This is the picture of the vice of smoking which is given by MOIGE (Italian Parents' Association) and a survey conducted by SWG of Trieste from 5,000 parents with children between 11 and17 and 400 tobacco shops all across Italy. According to the survey, 47 pct of parents who smoke pay for their children's purchases in tobacco shops. But almost all of them know that it is illegal for cigarettes to be bought by or sold to children under age 16. In order to fight this phenomenon MOIGE and tobacco shops are launching (starting today) an awareness campaign to inform adults about the risks of smoking for children and the laws in force concerning them. The campaign - presented today in Rome with the slogan "We mustn't smoke. Both the law and good sense tell us this" - will travel on a bus with 40 stops across the Italian peninsula and will bring an educational message the cities that the bus will stop in include: Rome, Cagliari, Palermo, Catanzaro, Potenza, Bari, Naples, Campobasso, Pescara, Ancona, Bologna, Verona, Udine, Trento, Segrate, Como, Aosta, Turin, Genoa, Siena, Florence and Viterbo. But the Federation of Tobacco Shop Owners has announced another important initiative to discourage smoking among minors. It will be possible to purchase cigarettes from automatic vendors only after having introduced a particular card with a chip containing personal details and which will be distributed only to those over 16. "There is a need for information on the law", said Maria Rita Munizzi, president of MOIGE, "and a cultural operation to inform parents not only on the dangers of smoking but also on the existence of the law and respect for it. An alliance has therefore been made between parents and tobacco shop owners in order to keep children away form smoking". Cigarettes mean transgression for adolescents. "At the beginning there is the desire to emulate adults and to feel as if they were adults", said Federico Bianchi Di Castelbianco, psycho-therapist of adolescence and director of the institute of speech therapists of Rome, "also because at that age it is necessary to feel part of a group. Society also makes frequent use of the myth of macho figures with a cigarette dangling from their lips and of the 'femme fatal'. And smoking is forbidden and so it is even more fascinating. It is necessary to show an adolescent what the dangers of smoking are, because sometimes words aren't enough". Bianchi Di Castelbianco ends off with advice to parents: "Set a good example". (AGI) -
041205 MAG 06
Travel: My Roman Affair.
05 May 2006
Breathtaking. Fascinating. Magnificent. SYIDA LIZTA AMIRUL IHSAN was intoxicated by the sights and sounds of the historic city of Rome.
ROME was not built in a day, but my friend Tracy Toh believes you can cover it in less than 24 hours.
So it was that when we were in Florence recently for salabianca and philosophy-Men’s fashion shoot for its Ciao! Italia campaign, we used our free day to travel to Rome to immerse our senses in the sights and sounds of the historically opulent city.
We took the Eurostar from Santa Maria Novella, Florence’s main station at 9.30am. The 90-minute journey to Rome cost us about RM165 (one-way), an option we chose over regular train (half the price, but more than double the travelling time).
We arrived at Roma Termini, the city’s main station at 11am and headed straight to the subway for Barberini.
I wanted to buy a Rome Hard Rock Cafe (HRC) T-shirt and Toh wanted to show me the Fontana di Trevi. (Toh is familiar with the city, having been there many times. She also speaks Italian fluently, though she humbly insists that her skills are limited to touristic purposes).
Piazza Barberini is the meeting point of several streets like Via Barberini, Via Sistina, and Via Vittorio Veneto (where the Rome HRC is located). Traffic was swarming that morning with buses, cars and scooters that come with visors.
The square’s main feature is Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Fontana del Tritone (Fountain of the Triton). A figure, blowing water from his triton, sits in an open clam held together by four wide-eyed fish.
On one side of the piazza is the facade of Palazzo Barberini, named after one of Rome’s most powerful families. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, located in the palace, now houses a collection of paintings including Raphael’s portrait La Fornarina and Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes.
Next, we walked to Fontana di Trevi or Trevi Fountain, which, at 25.5 metres high and 19.5 metres wide, is the largest, most ambitious and most beautiful of Rome’s Baroque fountains. The stonework is immensely captivating and the endless stream of tourists (and souvenir peddlers) is an indication of its popularity.
In seamless reaction, I found myself impulsively taking pictures, eager to capture the breathtaking view of stone-carved humans and animals.
In the middle of the fountain, Neptune stands in a free-standing column, flanked by Abundance who spills water from her urn and Salubrity who holds a cup from which a snake drinks.
We left the fountain for the Pantheon, a magnificent building constructed in 27BC as a Roman temple but was later dedicated as a Catholic Church. It was built during the reign of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, and his name is inscribed on the structure.
It reads M.AGRIPPA.L.F.COS.TERTIUM.FEZIT which in English means “Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, consul for the third time, built this”.
We wanted to enter but the huge crowd discouraged us and we headed for Piazza Navona instead.
They say if you have seen one church you’ve seen them all. But I was fascinated by each and every one that I saw in the Italian capital.
Piazza Navona is located on the site of Domitian’s stadium, once used almost exclusively for sports events, including the famous August regatta where participants wore the colours of the nobles and the civic clergy.
The attraction of the square is the famous Fountain of the Four Rivers by Bernini, dated 1651. It represented the rivers Danube, Ganges, Nile and Rio de la Plata, arranged on a steep rocky reef from which an obelisk rises into the air.
Another prominent 17th-century artist, Borromini built the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone, which stands in front of the fountain. There are also the Fountain of the Moor and Fountain of Neptune along the square.
“I think you have seen enough fountains for the day,” Toh said, after another session of picture-taking at Piazza Navona. The sun was shining brightly and we thought, why not have a gelato?
There are at least 35 flavours of the Italian ice-cream lining the counter at Giolitti.
The shop is small, with green signage and in one section, people were queueing for pizza and pasta for a quick lunch.
It was a task choosing which flavours to have. They spanned a dizzying spectrum and it would take days to try everything; from interesting (rice), intoxicating (Grand Marnier), fruity (pineapple) to normal (caramel).
I took the medium cone and the server plonked huge servings of gelato (in caramel, strawberry and pistachio) onto the crispy cone. The taste was heavenly.
Enough of sight-seeing, we went shopping instead at Via Del Corso, the city’s shopping district. We visited la Rinascente, Italy’s leading department store.
We also surveyed clothes in Etam, a French high-street label which is just average in choice and cannot compete with the variety and style found in other highstreet labels like H&M and Topshop.
We stopped at Zara and found the clothes the same as those in Malaysian stores (although, there is a better variety of shoes). The store also sells perfume and cosmetic products.
Before long, it was time to head back to Roma Termini for our 5.30pm Eurostar to Florence.
It turned out one day was not enough. I still want to visit the Vatican City, its museum, the massive Coliseum and see more churches and fountains. I bet it takes more than a lifetime to study Rome in all its different levels and complexities.
If you would like to experience Rome, and all its attractions then visit our website at
Lets-Travel-Rome.com
