In Other Parts of Europe: They Did It!

..and this guy was just happy they pulled it off. I applaud him. Who says priests are stuffy? Have you never seen The Vicar of Dibly?!

Door Series #41

How Venice Works...with spit and some gum really.

 Ever wonder how is Venice still standing? How they get to the hospital, take out the trash, deliver the mail? Watch this awesome video, my mouth was open for the whole thing. I will be in Venice in a few months and I'm not sure now that I can even flush the toliet.....

Crazy Italian Commercials #3

 I hate this commercial for Vivident gum. It's weird and creepy. It's not cheesy like a Mentos ad, it's just bizarre. I don't know what they were thinking, but do you that a headless teenager sells gum well?

I Love the British Sense of Humor!

 With the royal wedding upon us, and let's face it, even if you are trying to avoid it you can't escape it so let's embrace it. You may know from viral video fame, a recent trend in American weddings has been to add a pop song and some coordinated irreverent dance moves to a normally formal moment.

Viral video wedding entrance example:


The Brits, god love 'em, (and T-Mobile) have made a royal wedding spoof on this American trend. In the video you can see look-alikes of all Brit royals including the Queen, William and Kate, and my favorite Harry.
Royal wedding entrance video:

Love it!

Are You Watching?

 Are you watching The Borgias? If you are not, let me spark your interest. It's a a historical fiction series on Showtime that dramatizes the real life and times of an Italian family whom used poison, sex, the church, the papacy, and their children like currency, to gain power and money in Renaissance Rome. There is no need to look to the future anymore for drama and intrigue, all you have to do is look into the past. That trend is ripe at the moment with the success of The Tudors, Spartacus, Rome, and now The Borgias which incidentally stars the velvety voiced Jeremy Irons. I find it interesting that the makers of this series would choose this lesser known family to put on TV over the better known and full of just as much drama and historical importance Medicis. But I am hooked just the same if not for the men in tights alone.

Link to Our Show

Try this link if the video is not working to see our episode for HHI!

http://www.hgtv.com/video/taking-off-to-torino-italy-video/index.html

Taking Off To Torino

Peeking in the Windows

 I do alot of walking in Italy and therefore there is the chance to do alot of window shopping. On a walk along Via Po, I took a few snaps of some window gems that caught my eye.

 Not 1 but 3 men ready to serve you gelato.

This must be the oldest flag in Torino. It might even be as old as the anniversary, 150 years.

Door Series #40

Big Market Day

 Here I am ready for the big one day flea market, first of the summer! I've got my sunblock, bug spray, shades, sun hat, extra pair of emergency flip flops in case of a shoe malfunction, and my 2 wheeled shopping cart.

There is alot of ground to cover so I usually have a route planned.

Here are a few of my favorite finds;

The color of this couch is so lush.

A table full of old cameras, I could play with them all day.

A map of New York with the Twin Towers.

A clock made of of what else?, other clocks!

I got some great finds which will be added to my shop shortly so check those out. Also If anyone sees our House Hunters show, please let us know how it was. Thanks!

Lost Art in Progress

 The Gazebo in the center of Rapallo is one of my very favorite places. It contains, and I have blogged about this before, a grand fresco celebrating the allegory of music. The bright colors are so magnetic and the painting style is a most attractive art nouveau with fits in the time frame of which it was painted in 1929. It used to be the center for live classical concerts where musicians would play inside the gazebo and the patrons would sit in chairs surrounding. I have always thought that the fresco was never protected enough always being naked in the elements and I was right. Damage to the frescoes by salt and moisture have taken it's tole.

Now the city has decided to make some improvements and do some restoring. First, with national treasures and UNISCO sites like Pompei actually falling down, I applaud the efforts of taking care of your monuments. That said, the scaffolding went up for one week and when it came down I was shocked to see that they had covered up at least 1/4th of the painting with plaster. Shock horror why!? To fill in the cracks but the artists original work is just gone. I'm sure and very good art restorer will attempt to put back the pieces but it will never be the same.

I'm just so glad that I have pictures of it from last summer PRE-plaster..for posterity that is.

Now With Horse Meat!

 I am still surprised at the things that Italy throws at me everyday. Today I wondered by a pet store that had a giant bag of dog food on special that was made with horse meat. Notice it does say (in english) "cruelty free". Oh, well that's ok then.....

This is Your Friendly Reminder

Our House Hunters International show will be airing in the US on HGTV on April 10 at 10:30 pm EST. We just hope that we look good and don't come across too cheesy. For all the info off the website including show times and a summery of our episode, click here.
Thanks for watching everyone!

Salty Sailor

 This gentleman is outside working on the boats everyday. He strikes me as the perfect salty sailor. He also sometimes has a pipe and a can of spinich. (Just kidding about the spinich part).

Also this week, Pier got an old fashioned haircut at the barbers.

And it's finally warm enough for Joile to take another Jolie and the Castle picture #3

More Americans In Italian Ads

  Check out this Lavazza ad with Julia Roberts. She doesn't say a word and just smiles and nods through the whole thing. It's quite obvious she has no idea what they are saying. I know because I employ this same technique when I don't understand the Italian being spoken. In fact, I don't even think she was there at the same time as the other actors. But she does follow a growing list of American actors doing Italian ads...especially coffee ads.