Posted by Scuola Leonardo da Vinci

Web Site: www.scuolaleonardo.com

Campo dei Fiori

You have to see it. And it is worth it. But be prepared that this piazza and the surrounding streets are quite popular with tourists and at night the crowd is very young. Obviously the big draw card in the famous open-ait market (every morning), offering flowers, vegetables, fruit cheap clothes and shoe shopping in this area, some great delicatessens and bakeries, however, it is not as upmarket as areas closer to the Spanish Steps or Piazza Navona. Check out Piazza Farnese, which is right beside this busy piazza yet is always more tranquil and is the home to the stunning palazzo of the French Embassy.

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Posted by Il Sasso Italian School.

Web Site: www.ilsasso.com

When you take the Strada delle Crete, the road that leads down from Siena towards the south, the last strip of Tuscany before Umbria, you need to drive carefully. Every 100 metres or so there will be somebody who has pulled their car to a halt along the side of the road, and is taking photographs, totally enrapt, unaware of anything else.

Of course, tourists and travellers from all over the world have been crisscrossing Tuscany for centuries, but this more recent phenomenon begs the question of whether this desire to bring home a memory of this land is merely an example of the, very common, compulsion to collect beautiful images, or whether it is the result of a deeper intuition. Read the rest of this post »

Posted by Istituto Galilei in Florence.

Web Site: www.galilei.it

“Avere le mani bucate” what does it means?
Those who like shopping, and who end up at the end of a day without being able to remember how or where they spent all your money, have definitelly “le mani bucate”, which in English is translated as “they have holes in their hands”!

It is of course a slang a colloquial expression Read the rest of this post »

Posted by Scuola Leonardo da Vinci in Florence.

Web Site: http://www.scuolaleonardo.com/Italian-language-school-Florence.html

The city of Florence is known everywhere in the world as the Cradle of the Renaissance, which here is born and here developed: every street and every corner of the city is characterized by the extraordinary development that the literature, the arts and the science had during the XIV-XVI centuries. Here lived and worked artists, writers, thinkers and scientists known everywhere in the world, such as Leonardo da Vinci, who here created his masterpieces, one of this the Gioconda, Michelangelo, Raffaello, Sandro Botticelli, Niccolò Machiavelli, Filippo Brunelleschi, Galileo Galilei and more.

Today Florence is known as the city of Art, with an inestimable heritage of architectures, paintings, sculptures which make of her an openair museum.

The heart of Florence is Piazza della Signoria (Signoria Square) with the magnific Palazzo Vecchio, the Loggia dei Lanzi rich of sculptures, and the close Galleria degli Uffizi, one of the most renowned museum in the world. Read the rest of this post »

Posted by Babilonia – Centro di lingua e cultura italiana – Taormina, Sicily

Web Site: http://www.babilonia.it

Have you ever been to a place where the horizon is always visible?
I live in one and although the horizon is only an imaginary line for most people, ‘mine’ is solid, magnificent.

I live on an island and it’s called Sicily. It has the taste of the sea, the smell of the sun and the colours of the volcano. This marvellous land’s extraordinary foods have been talked about since the times of the ancient Roman poets. Read the rest of this post »

Posted by Scuola Leonardo da Vinci di Milano.

Web Site: http://www.scuolaleonardo.com/Italian-language-school-Milan.html

Milan is one of the most famous cities of Italy, known all over the world as synonym of fashion, design, business and night life.
The northern capital of Italy offers an unmistakable outstanding international and cosmopolitan atmosphere, it is an unique city where tradition and new trends mix.
Milan is an eclectic metropolis that never sleeps, the romantic side of the Navigli, built from the XIII century, gently meets and dash into the creativity and the frenzy of the fashion and business district.

It is also the city of great ancient architecture such as the Duomo Church, one of the biggest and the most majestic gothic Cathedral of the world and the Sforzesco Castle. Read the rest of this post »

The is the biggest event in the world dedicated to the art of the street. It was founded in 1988 with the aim of enhancing the role of street musicians and to get to know Ferrara a city rich in history and charm.
For many spectators from all over Italy and even from abroad, the Festival is an exciting tour around the world in search of familiar and exotic sounds; it’s a passionate-treasu Ferrara Buskers Festivalre-hunt to discover the most original instruments, the most inspired performances and the most fanciful costumes. It is, above all, an endless mobile jamboree, that moves in a thousand directions, able to reserve surprises at every corner: a river of joy, of hints and amazement, that invades the streets and squares of one of the most beautiful city centres of Italy. Read the rest of this post »

Posted by Istituto Linguistico Bertrand Russell - Padova.

Web site: www.bertrand-russell.it

What is that partying noise echoing down the road, towards the squares? And that mixture of smells that floods the city centre? The answer lies in the heart of Italian history, in the old trade of selling, in the pleasure of choosing: market. Actually, the Paduan markets. Dust lifted by carts laden with fruits and vegetables, the cries of the vendors, the tangle of bicycles jammed in the medieval streets.

A time paradox in front of the shop windows of major fashion houses, and bars competing to be the most fashionable. The Paduan squares have been experiencing this contrast every morning for centuries. Like a Middle Eastern bazaar, the market reinvents itself each day at the northern border of the Mediterranean. A little taste of the east in Northeastern Italy, beside one of the oldest and most prestigious Universities in Europe, a few kilometres from Venice and its ports.

This is Padua, whose old town exudes fragrances, flavours and images from centuries of history, studies and travels. Two squares with antique, but clear, names, Piazza della Frutta – Fruit Square – e delle Erbe – Herbs Square –, separated by the huge Palazzo della Ragione and by Piazza dei Signori, still dominate life in the town’s historical centre.

Posted by Abbey School CiaoItaly - Torino.

Web site: www.ciaoitaly-turin.com

Giandujotto,Bicerin… there are many specialities that make Turin “terribly delicious”. As you stroll through the streets of this “little Paris” you cannot help but try the hot chocolate, cakes, pastries and other genuine delicacies whose recipes have been passed on from generation to generation.

An international symbol of Torinese and Piedmontese pralines, the Giandujotto is a chocolate with a classic clove shape and “hand-cut” with “daggers”. Made with milk chocolate and the “Tonda Genitle”, a typical hazelnut from the Langhe area of Italy, it was born at the beginning of the 1800s thanks to the testing of some new equipment that – mixing cocoa, vanilla, water and sugar – allowed the chocolate to be transformed into solid little bars. It was the first chocolate to be paper-wrapped, and it was named after Gianduja, the legendary Commedia d’Arte character typically representing Turin. It was subsequently put onto the market in 1865 especially for the Carnival season.

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The exhibition, requested by Jean-Marc de La Sablière, French Ambassador to Italy, has been set up in collaboration with the Italian Ministry for Culture, and is curated by Prof. Francesco Buranelli, Secretary of the Papal Commission for Cultural Heritage of the Church, and by architect Roberto Cecchi, General Secretary of the Ministry for Culture.

The idea behind this exhibition came from a desire to open up Palazzo Farnese, now the location of the French Embassy, to the public.

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