Italian News Snippets: 09.23.07

Some Italian news for your Sunday reading pleasure:

• The FBI thinks one of its most-wanted crime bosses visited Sicily in April, so if you saw this man on your Italian vacation, the FBI wants to talk to you.
• A new group in Milan is trying to get Italians to drink the tap water. While there’s nothing wrong with tap water in most of Italy, locals are wedded to their bottled water – so it seems to be it’ll be an uphill climb. For those of you who’d rather get your water for free, however, check out the new water dispensing spots in Milan where you can fill up your own bottles with regular, cold or even “bubbly” water.
• Budget Travel has come out with its annual list of the Best Places You’ve Never Heard Of, and one of them is in Italy – in the Basilicata region, to be exact, the town of Castelmezzano.
• I’ve been known to say I have a shoe obsession, but this Italian shoe thief is a bird of a different feather. What I want to know is how he convinced women to take their shoes off so he could steal them. That’s bold.
• Here are a couple of websites which will tell you what’s going on in Milan at any given moment, to help you plan your trip to the fashion and financial capital – even if you’re not into fashion or finances.
• The 16th-century painter, Titian, is being honored in his homeland of the Veneto with a showing of some of his last works. The shows, held in Titian’s hometown of Pieve di Cadore and also Belluno nearby, will run through early January 2008.
• What do you do if you find yourself in Rome but longing for Buenos Aires? Why, you hop on a tango cruise, of course! It’s a seven-day cruise departing from Civitavecchia/Roma in late November, and besides all the usual cruise-y stuff there are plenty of tango lessons.
• Tuscany is a great region to drive through, whether you’re in a Ferrari or a Fiat. Here are a few suggestions of scenic drives through Tuscany.
• Italy’s first Holocaust memorial is slated to be opened in a Milan rail station in 2009 – the station was used to deport Jews during World War II. Rome is also apparently planning some kind of memorial as well.
• Officials in Northern Italy have seized labels from a wine maker which depict the image of Adolf Hitler and are emblazoned with Nazi imagery and sayings. Labels featuring Mussolini’s image, however, were not taken.
• Sadly, Pavarotti’s death has led to a dispute over his estate – it seems he left two wills, and there’s uncertainty about how they should be reconciled.
• If you love cheese, you’ll be sad to have missed Cheese 2007 – the Slow Food cheese festival just happened this weekend in the Piedmont town of Bra. Keep your nose to the ground for Cheese 2008.
• It’s always about fashion in Milan, but this weekend begins women’s fashion week in Milan, which will showcase 90 designers in nearly 100 shows.
• Officials have caught a gang of tomb raiders with their ancient loot – including some pre-Roman artifacts.
• A gondolier from Venice has rowed his gondola all the way to Rome for charity. If you thought a quick spin around the Grand Canal was expensive, just imagine how much his 17-day journey just cost.
• Now that they’ve gotten a handle on the scourge of the windshield washers, apparently the city of Florence’s next target is illegal parking attendants.