Italian News Snippets: 05.25.08

Some Italian news for your Sunday reading pleasure:

• If you’re heading to Rome and you like dead people, check out the newly restored mausoleum underneath St. Peter’s Basilica.
• Want to win a trip to Europe? Think you’re pretty handy with a video camera? Then enter the Europe Travel Commission’s “You and Europe” contest.
• Wow. The Vatican says that God made aliens, too.
• I never really thought about my pasta being pro-Mafia, but there’s a special anti-Mafia pasta that was on sale yesterday, and the profits are supposed to go to retired Italians.
• Berlusconi has moved his cabinet to Naples, fulfilling a campaign pledge to “base his government in the southern city instead of the capital Rome to resolve the rubbish crisis.” But there are more problems than just garbage facing Naples, not to mention the rest of the country.
• Berlusconi had his first cabinet meeting held in Naples to put a spotlight on the city’s trash crisis. But garbage trucks worked overtime before the pols arrived in order to clear up the route they’d be driving through the city. Sounds like they’re already not doing a very good job of facing reality.
• Flying directly into Florence could get easier as the airport’s traffic and profits increase.
• Venice can get rid of pigeons (or at least make the pigeon population go down) – bravo Venice! But can it really put a stop to graffiti just by asking for it?
• The Romanian government has called Italy “weak” in its response to crimes allegedly committed by Roma people – but Italy just recently did another sweep against illegal immigrants (including Romanians), arresting more than 400 people in one day.
• Italy Magazine features a couple articles on places you may not have considered visiting before – Maratea in Basilicata, and Terme de Saturnia in Tuscany.
• Are T-shirts which function as “cheat sheets” a fashion statement, or just smart style for Italian kids who haven’t had time to study?
• Wow. Italian soccer star Diego Maradona either has a serious axe to grind, or a serious case of the whiny-pants. Or both.
• Italy’s famous Juventus soccer team is on a promotional tour of Asia, and if you’re in North America you can catch the games on GolTV.
• Ever wonder what it’s like to work out in an Italian gym? Francesca can tell you.
• Fodor’s lists their five favorite pizza places in Rome. (Thanks to Italofile for the link.)
• This Perceptive Travel writer thinks the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary in Rome is the best thing to see in the Eternal City. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but I did thoroughly enjoy my visit in March.
• Here’s an interesting article about the Italian piazza – not one in particular, but kind of all of them.
• Padre Pio’s tomb has been desecrated, supposedly by the Capuchin friars who took a “sneak peek” at the body before it officially went on display.