Cherish The Sweet Life

Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon ruled here. Michelangelo and Leonardo created, Verdi composed, and St Francis of Assisi prayed. Constantine the Great found divine inspiration in Rome and spread Christianity throughout his empire.

A young nation in an old land:

This is ITALY (Turkish: Italya)

Stands as a cornerstone of Western history. Rich in its picturesque natural beauty, gilded with sunshine, rich culture, and all other attractions about Italy are surely fascinating everyone as the country itself.

Art first and foremost in the country's many museums, churches and palazzi, the significant events, the lands of the province, the charming old towns and castles, the typical products, the marvellous hand-crafts, the artists, endless creativity and generally classified as a warm race of people(*) that on the whole believe in living life to the fullest being ''all-ways happy always'' who made it great for every time.
(*) As far as warm personality is concerned, I would score Turkish people at 2-1 vs Italian people:)

I love that Italian way, and the Italian sense of humor is ever present:) They laugh, cry, shout, and argue at the top of their voices in public! Incredibly funny for me! One example, if you drive too slow in the traffic, they always blast their horns. They talk like singing with a joyful lyrics. All in all, they are so passionate about their culture and their language italian. However they never take themselves too seriously, interesting fact isn't it?!


Earlier this month when I was in Bell'Italia (English: Beautiful Italy) as seen the contents above and the map below where I' ve been to, two top news was most ranked in italian media. One is ''Oo-La-La!'' situation of love affair between French President Sarkozy and Italian-born former model and new singer Carla Bruni that many comments about the love and politics took place widely in local tv channels. I see that these kind of news not only placed in Turkish media, but also in Italian media! And the media always seem to be curious for such kinda magazine news wherever I go:) Does it really matter?

The next news which I was concentrated much more was the mountains of garbage in the Naples area -the largest city in the Southern Italy; locally Italian Napoli- and surrounding Campania region, angry protests from residents, giving big trouble for the Italian Government how to solve this problem ''once and for all'' and formulate a new strategy to cope with the crisis against Mafia-controlled waste-disposal. I could hardly believe in my eyes when seeing the garbages lined five-kilometers long in beautiful Naples streets and not collected for a long time!


Did you know...

Area: 301,225 sq. km (116,303 sq. mi); about the size of Georgia and Florida (of the USA) combined.
Population (2007 est): 57.8 million.
Italy has the fifth-highest population density in Europe, about 200 persons per sq. kilometer (490 per sq. mi.)
Climate: Generally mild Mediterranean; cold northern winters.

Gov't type: Republic since June 2, 1946.
'Italy is a democratic republic, founded on labor' is the official state motto.

Work force (24.63 million, 2006 est):
Services-- 63%
Industry and commerce-- 32%
Agriculture-- 5%
Unemployment rate-- 7%

GDP per capita (purchasing power parity, 2006 est): $30,200
Industry: Tourism, machinery, iron and steel, chemicals, food processing, textiles, motor vehicles, clothing, footwear, ceramics.

Italy is the fourth most visited country in the world.

The Italian economy has changed dramatically since the end of World War II. From an agriculturally based-economy, it has developed into an industrial state ranked as the world's sixth-largest market economy.


Italy still cherishes the epitome of la dolce vita (English: The Sweet life), as seen in immortal Caravaggio's late 16th century portrait of Bacchus above, the God of wine.

So stay tuned for more travel notes in the days ahead!