Trevi, Umbria - A week without TV

The Italians - watch on average 28 hours of TV per person per week as compared to 28 hours of weekly viewing by the average Italian. In Italian homes there is nearly always a television in the kitchen as well as in other rooms and it is usually left on during mealtimes.

When a school in Trevi [Umbria] asked two classes to participate in a project in which not only the children but also their parents would spend one week without watching the television at all, then, the families foresaw a difficult seven days. However, 41 children between the ages of 8 and 11 and their families agreed to try, denying themselves the use of video and computer games as well, reports La Repubblica.

The project, called “Oltre lo Schermo” [“Beyond the Screen”] was the idea of Umbrian journalist and mother Giovanna Grieco, who only allows her own son to watch TV for a short time each day. He spends the rest of his free time reading stories and playing games with his family. Ms Grieco suggested games and activities that the children could do in the afternoons at school or at home instead of watching TV.

The emphasis was on interacting with the people around them.
In all, 28 children got through the “week without TV” and they kept diaries of their difficulties and discoveries of other ways to spend their time, such as helping their mothers with the cooking, reading in the school library or enjoying playing games with their parents.

“We enjoyed turning the TV off every time Dad switched it on”, reported eight-year-old twins.
It seems that the older children found the sacrifice harder than the younger ones. The school is happy with the outcome and may extend the project to include other classes in the future.

"What’s Fashion About?”

"What’s Fashion About?” is the title of the 77th Pitti Uomo [Pitti for Men] Fashion Show which is taking place at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence until 15th January. This is the event that opens the international fashion fair season every year and exhibitors from all segments of the fashion industry participate, including textile manufacturers, garment makers, textile machinery and technology manufacturers, embroidery companies, makers of trimmings and accessories and even laundries. In all 730 exhibitors and 905 brands are participating.

The organisers say that, because of the recession, all fashion houses have been rethinking their strategies and Pitti have reflected this by breaking with tradition in the design of this year’s exhibition space. Spanish designer and architect Patricia Urquiola has revolutionised the design of the main pavilion and, on the lower floor, she has created a “fashion district”. Here the exhibitors’ stands are smaller than in previous years so that there is more space between them to encourage people to stop and talk. “Give up a little of your space so that there is room for all” is the message.

Exhibitors hope that the autumn-winter 2010 – 11 collections will mark a turning point for the industry as it comes out of recession but everything depends on the army of international buyers – 22,000 of them attended the last winter fair - who can make or break a brand. The upturn in the industry’s fortunes is expected to begin with the export market which decreased by 19.6% last year. The fashion companies particularly hope to be able to export their goods to the USA.

Yesterday Lars Nilsson showed elegant outdoor wear for men along with brightly patterned scarves. The waistcoat is definitely back in his suits and evening jackets featured a Bogey cut. Japanese designer Jun Takashaki showed in Italy for the first time in the setting of the Boboli Gardens in the evening. Corleani are showing at the Pitti for the first time. Pitti_W Woman Precollections are showing simultaneously at the Dogana. These are collection previews taking place in an exhibition space designed by Oliviero Baldini.

http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy/firenze/whats-fashion-about

Darwin Day - Perugia 2009

To commemorate the centenary of Darwin's Evolution of the Species theory, the Associazione Nazionale Insegnanti di Scienze Naturali, the Centro di Ateneo per i Musei Scientifici have scheduled a long series of events throughout Umbria for Darwin Day from February through to December.


Email: segreteria@perugiasciencefestival.it

Forget Van Gogh's ear - it's Galileo's molar

A private art collector who recently purchased a seventeenth-century box containing unidentified “artefacts” must have had a gruesome surprise when he opened it, for it contained a human tooth, a thumb and a middle finger, later authenticated as having belonged to none other than Galileo Galilei [1564 – 1642] who was condemned by the Vatican for claiming that the Earth moved around the Sun.

The collector contacted the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza in Florence and the Museum’s director, Paolo Galluzzi, pieced together the story:
when Galileo died, those close to him feared that the Church would refuse him burial in consecrated ground because of his “heresies” so his body was taken to a small room beneath the bell tower of Santa Croce.



In 1737, 95 years after the astronomer’s death, his body was removed from its “temporary” grave and placed in a monumental tomb in the Basilica itself. It was during this process that Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti, chief physician of the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova Gualtieri, removed the tooth, two fingers and the thumb from the right hand and the fifth lumbar vertebra. He wrote that he found it difficult not to yield to the temptation to remove the skull too, for it “had housed such extraordinary genius”.

One of the fingers was kept in the Science Museum in Florence and the vertebra was conserved at the University of Padua, where Galileo had taught.
The other body parts, however, were kept in a blown-glass vase inside a wooden container and this was passed down the generations of a noble family. Eventually, no one in the family knew what was in the container and they sold it. All trace of it was lost by 1905. Then suddenly it turned up at auction.

The rediscovered relics will be displayed in the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza in Florence when it reopens next year as the Museo Galileo.


http://www.italymag.co.uk/

Wine of the Month: Le Serre Nuove dell’Ornellaia

Ten years old and still going strong. First made in 1997 and released in 1999, Le Serre Nuove is a complex aromatic red by the acclaimed Tenuta dell’Ornellaia winery in Tuscany.

One of the Tenuta’s three wines, it came 12 years after the flagship Ornellaia and, like its big brother, it quickly garnered international praise.

Le Serre Nuove is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, mainly made with grapes from younger vineyards. Technically, it is a second vin, a byproduct of Ornellaia, because it is produced with base wines that don’t make the cut during the flagship wine’s extremely rigorous selection process.

But second vin doesn’t mean it is a second rate wine. Its combination of intense aroma, structure, balance, but also freshness, softness and approachability captured critics’ interest from the very early days.

Each of the base wines is fermented and aged separately, first in stainless steel vats, then in barrels. After 12 months, the blending takes place. Once blended, the wine is aged in barrels for three months, and in bottle for six more. The end result has been described as “gorgeous”, “mellifluous”, “very rich”, and “elegant”, and, over the years, was awarded a minimum of 88 points (for the 1997 vintage) and a maximum of 92 (for the 2004 vintage) by wine bible The Wine Spectator.

Now the tenth anniversary vintage, which dates from 2007, promises to be among Le Serre Nuove’s very best. The weather was perfect in September two years ago, with hot sunny days and cool nights, ensuring the grapes ripened to perfection.

"Having ideal conditions in September enabled a perfect, slow, steady ripening of the grapes," says Leonardo Raspini, general director and agronomist of Tenuta dell’Ornellaia. "In this way, the grapes mature with a good concentration of aromas and polyphenols and without any hint of overripening.”
The resulting wine has “a complex bouquet, with intense red berry fruit, sweet spice and balsamic mint and eucalyptus accents," according to Axel Heinz, winemaker of Tenuta dell’Ornellaia. “Ample and silky on the palate, it displays an elegant, deft tannic structure, fresh sweet fruit, and intense minty accents.”

The 2007 vintage of Le Serre Nuove dell’Ornellaia is available now.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Why are young people [and some of their mothers] flocking to the small Tuscan town of Volterra?

Ah, romance is far from dead in the twenty-first century and these particular pilgrims have set out for the “shrine” where Stephanie Meyer, the author of “Twilight” and “New Moon”, set a particularly important scene between her heroine Bella and Edward, the vampire she loves.

Volterra is also where the elite vampire coven, the Volturi, reside in the books and films of the “Twilight Saga”.

The film version of ”New Moon”, starring Kristen Stewart as Bella and Robert Pattinson as Edward, is due to be released on November 20th in the USA and Italy and on November 27th in the UK. Despite a vigorous online campaign for filming in Volterra the Italian scenes were actually shot in nearby Montepulciano but that has not stopped the townsfolk of Volterra from making the most of the tourism opportunity which has come their way: you can book Vampire Tours, New Moon weekends and a tour called “Hot on the trail of Bella and Edward”. You can buy “New Moon” mugs, calendars and even soaps.



Should you be in the town and suffer from “New Moon fatigue”, you can always explore the walled city itself, with its Roman Theatre, palaces, Museo Etrusco Guarnacci and twelfth century Duomo. And should you need a complete change of scene, you can escape to the medieval hill town of San Gimignano.
“New Moon” is not Volterra’s only claim to literary fame as the Italian novel “Chimaira” by Valerio Massimo Manfredi is set there and the town is mentioned in Dudley Pope’s “Captain Nicholas Ramage” series. In real life the French author Stendhal had a disastrous encounter with his unrequited love there.


http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy/volterra/vampire-trips-volterra

Chestnuts: a rare treat, and versatile too

Hanging by a thread off laden branches, chestnuts sparkle like dark jewels.
They look like huge, fat raindrops, and gleam with a perfect deep brown gloss against the golden spines of the half-open burrs that hold them.
Deep inside—wrapped securely in the shiny peel's firm cocoon, sheltered by what remains of the prickly burrs—the straw-yellow core is ripening, getting ready to yield its sweet, nutty flavour to the voracious embrace of a roasting pan.

Soon starch will turn into sugar and the chestnuts will start falling with muffled thuds on the mossy undergrowth that carpets woods from Piedmont to Umbria.

Europe's oldest living chestnut tree, which stands in Sicily, is reputed to be more than 3,000 years old.
It is so big that legend wants it to have given shelter to a medieval queen, Joan of Aragon, and her escort of 100 knights on a stormy evening. If the story is true, it was already there when the Romans, who were great fans of the plant, started planting chestnut trees along the length and breadth of the Mediterranean basin.
The sweet nuts were so popular that even the empire's greatest poets sung of them in their work—in the Eclogues, Virgil recalled a dainty dish of chestnuts cooked in milk and eaten with cheese, while Martial raved about the roast ones he had in Naples.

In some areas, such as the Tuscan Apennine, chestnuts were the main staple since Roman times and throughout the Middle Ages - chiefly because of their nourishing qualities, though their reputation as aphrodisiacs can't have hurt.

Also from TuscanyIUmbria comes castagnaccio, a thin, textured, nutty cake made with chestnut flour peppered with pine nuts and rosemary.
Even richer is Monte Bianco, a rum-drizzled mountain of chestnut puree and cocoa, covered by a snow-white blanket of whipped cream.

And of course there are chestnut-filled tortelli, chestnut flour fritters,and the velvety marmellata di marroni—a chestnut puree blended with syrup and cooked until it becomes a deliciously sweet cream.

The best places to savour the nuts, both in traditional and innovative recipes, are the areas of production.
Virtually every hill or mountain wood in Italy will have a chestnut grove - they cover some 15% of Italy's wooded surface—but the most acclaimed nuts come from Tuscany and Umbria, Piedmont and Campania.

HOLIDAY VILLA PRICES REDUCED IN UMBRIA

Recent reports show that the cost of holiday villas, houses and apartments have reached a twelve year low and even here in Umbria property companies have taken note, cutting their prices to match the competition worldwide. As property investors have become savvier of late and after years of prices increases they are low looking for the ultimate in bargains.

With rumours abounding that the Market is about to change and despite the last years price fall they should be back on the way up. This is where the true speculator can make their money. Do you hold the prices low for another month; will villa purchases fall again next month? It’s a game of cat and mouse. At the moment the smart money is still on a price fall but would you want to gamble on that and end up paying more for that little piece of paradise you have been tracking over the internet.

Properties Umbria feel the market has finally steadied and have held their prices with a third discount off until the end of October. By then the money men should have resolved things and the economy will be back on the rise again. Don’t wait to long to put in your offer, you could be paying more next month.