02 Feb 2015

Posted at 00:00h in Food and wine

Palma Campania is a small village in Southern Italy, between Naples, Avellino and Salerno, a tiny dot that shines, however, on the map of Italy thanks to the talent and creativity of Pietro Parisi, a young chef who was born here and where, in 2005, he opened his restaurant, Era Ora, where stars and heads of state have sat at his tables, from Nicolas Sarkozy, accompanied by his wife, Carla Bruni, to Hugh Laurie, the star of "House”.  Pietro is also known as the Farmer Chef  because, in his dishes, he uses produce from his own land, a very fertile area situated between the Avellino valley and the valley of Vesuvius, the Terra Felix of Campania as it was defined in the 80s, when it was one of the biggest producers of walnuts, hazelnuts and, above all, vegetables cultivated by the farmers that Pietro knows personally.

29 Nov 2013

Posted at 00:00h in Food and wine

The images of Julia Roberts enjoying an ice cream in Piazza Navona during the filming of “Eat Pray Love” traveled all around the world: Rome and ice cream, two undisputed symbols of Italian-ness. But ice cream cannot only be found in Rome: if we allow ourselves to be seduced by this Italian delicacy it will take us on an unusual journey of discovery of some of the “sweetest” places on the Italian peninsula.

20 Nov 2013

Posted at 00:00h in Movies & locations

The Royal Palace of Caserta, known as the 'Italian Versailles' is a beautiful 18th Century building that belonged to the Royal House of Bourbon, first and foremost to Charles of Bourbon, King of Naples and Sicily, and to his beloved bride, the young queen Maria Amalia of Saxony. She inspired the famous architect Luigi Vanvitelli for the construction of the palace.

20 Oct 2013

Posted at 00:00h in Movies & locations

The film by Guy Ritchie, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E." was partly filmed in Italy, in the Gulfs of Naples and Pozzuoli. Tagged Warner Bros, and co-starring – among othersMan from UNCLE - Rome -  Hugh Grant and last Superman hero Henry Cavill, here a CIA agent fighting evil in the Tyrrhenian Sea, the film is a remake of an American cult TV series of the sixties. It tells how, during the Cold War, two spies - one from the West and one from the East - decide to form a team  to track down and destroy a German scientist, who’s trying to create a new atomic bomb from his refuge in the Aragonese Castle of Baia, the great fortress of Roman origins, rising on a rock spur dominating the sea of Pozzuoli, in the very place where, according to the main historical and literary sources, the villa of the Roman dictator Julius Caesar rose up.

06 Apr 2011

Posted at 00:00h in Italian itineraries

The city of Naples is situated in the Gulf of the same name, between Vesuvius and the volcanic area of the Phlegraean Fields, in what has been called “one of the most celebrated and enchanting settings in the world “.This natural cove has attracted visitors ever since the first Greek settlers arrived on the island of PithekusaCalleria Umberto I (now called Ischia), subsequently founding the new city of Neapolis.

The sumptuous hidden villas, the sheer drops down to the sea, the ridges that overhang the coast made these the most luxurious places for ancient Romans to holiday and enjoy themselves. In fact, the Romans gave the Neapolitan hill the name of Pausilypon (now called Posillipo), which means a “respite from worry”. At Posillipo it is also possible to admire the Crypta Neapolitana, which contains the Tomb of Virgil.