Retaking Rome - one wall at a time

I highly recommend watching this superb production piece on full screen! 

Post by FEDERALBERGHI ROMA.

An incredible video by Rome's FederAlberghi Hotel Assoc who rolled up their sleeves alongside RetakeRoma & started cleaning up our City Center.

It starts with:

Millions of tourists dream of coming to Rome looking like this... But when they arrive...it looks more like this.

And ends with: 

We've applied the elbow grease - now it's up to City & Govt institutions to do the right thing.
 
And then...asking your officials (everywhere in Italy as the graffiti, garbage& stickers is a pox on our society) what are they doing with the 90 million euro each year taken out of the pockets of our visitors "for services to improve our fair City?"

Advertising in Italy: Not for the faint of heart

Anyone who has followed my blog knows that every so often...I come across a delicious ad campaign that I can't pass up.  But honestly, I never caught this one until one of my peeps @ABroadBrush pointed out the irony...
So here it is, my first entry of 2015 of ad campaign fails of the Bel Paese.  
This one, properly translated, states Switch over to WIND (mobile phone carrier).
Literally translated is...Pass to Wind ... if you get our drift...Well, actually, scratch that...you won't want to find yourself anywhere near our drift...
It's no wonder they use English so much in their ads. 

You actually could have some fun with their little vignettes...
Like...he who smelt it, dealt it!

Or...like this one...starts you wondering about those poor astronauts out there in Outer Space

For more fun posts on Italian adverts...try here!

Your Government at Work

Walking around my neighborhood as I am wont to do is often a wonderful experience, that is if you don't count my playing three times a day Doo-Doo Dodge'Em on the sidewalks: There are the old guys who hang out on the benches or in little groups talking - incessantly - about Lord knows what; the old ladies wheeling their carts to the mercato,  the Bangladeshi green grocers and other dog owners with whom I always stop to say hello.  In short, you get to know your little quartiere fairly well; with all its pox-marks and forlorn tree stumps lining my path.
So I was taken aback when rounding the corner, suddenly street signs had gone up, official yellow paint sprayed with a decisive cautionary aire down on the ground, and no cars in my midst - a rarity if there ever was one in Rome...The spanking new sign posted was still sans graffiti so I could read it:  NO PARKING.  TOURISM BUSES ONLY.  
Taking up (or shall I say, taking away from us mere mortals) a full five, treasured,  parking spaces -- while day in, day out, the street stands empty.  And yet we're all afraid to park there.  But the street waiting to host these phantasmagoric monoliths is quite wide.  Wide enough, in fact, to allow passengers to alight every so often.  That's because nearby, are the catacombs.  And sometimes, around Easter, their parking lots are full.
My first thought was...of all the darned places?  Just further on, in fact, there are miles of wide streets where none of us choose to park -- wide enough to hold countless numbers of monstrous buses (and Suvs for that matter...but, dream on...).  So this entire fiasco wreaking havoc on our parking rhythms, reeked horribly of skunk.
So, I ventured over to the cabal of guys-on-a-park bench and pondered loudly, Isn't there something we can do to make them take this back? After all, Rome is famous for do-overs.
And then, the guys shared with me their very best conspiracy theories; a national pastime in Italy.  But, I'm fairly certain this one was spot on:
Prior to the bus parking lane, huge trash containers were perched there.  The residents had asked for them be removed as there were others nearby. No one listened.  So, someone got the brainy idea to ask for a bus lane and Ecco Fatto! the horrible containers were gone; and along with them, so were the mountains of trash pulled out of them by the indefatigable hoards of gypsies...
So now, we're just waiting to put in the request to restore parking in that same spot for our cars and, gazillions of tax payer dollars later, all will be good in my corner of the world once again.  Talk about Civic Duty.
And the bonus? I now know what all those guys are busy plotting each day.

Italy has an Epiphany

January 6th marks the day we all get to have extra holidays in Italy.  That's because no one truly considers working between Christmas and New Years and not even between New Years (the Feast Day of Stephen-Santo Stefano) & the Epiphany, or La Befana - marked by the arrival of that old gift bearing kitchen witch floating by on a broomstick.  Once she turns up, expect the huge post-Epiphany sales, which cause tourists and residents alike to have their own sort of Epiphany.  The streets of Rome are so mobbed, even the counterfeit vendors don't have room to display their wares curbside.
In Venice, they hold the annual Regata of the Befana - From the looks of things, men can run the race dressed up as women, but still, a woman gondolier is as hard to find as a female priest.  Maybe this will bring the 'ol boys club just one step closer.
And, as a little curiousity, I just read in my charming This is Venice book (by M. Sasek) - a gift from the Befana herself - that in its heyday, Venice had over 10000 gondolas roaming its canals.  Now, fewer than 500 are in existence.  No wonder prices are so high for a ride. Talk about diminishing returns...

Pic from Venice.nu search engine site: 
  http://www.venice.nu/photos/regatta-della-befana/

And click here for a fun slideshow of the Venetian event.


And, for all those who don't know what we're celebrating exactly, here's my favorite video on youtube depicting the arrival of those three kings on this day:

Buona Befana a tutti!

*For more on our beloved Befana...Click Here