Italy
Stewed Siena
The Indian summer was still fending off the mists and mellow fruitfulness. But the autumn term was about to begin;…
Low life
I sprinted through Milan station, speed-read the departures monitor without stopping, and arrived gasping on platform 8 with two minutes…
Florence
The British have always been in love with Florence. First visits cannot disappoint. One friend recalls being herded around as…
Trattoria tour
The Gatto Nero — or ‘Black Cat’ — is in Burano, a tiny island in the Venetian lagoon. It is…
Portrait of the week
Home Talha Asmal, aged 17, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, died in a suicide bomb attack on forces near an oil…
The invasion of Italy
More than 50,000 boat people have arrived already this year, with many more expected
Country house opera
I stole a blanket last night. Rather a nice one, in fact. I feel bad about it, of course, but…
Benefits for people who don’t live here? Great idea
Yet another exciting discovery from the world of Islamic science. As you are probably aware, Islamic culture has always paid…
Long life
On election day I was in Puglia in the ‘heel’ of Italy, where interest in British politics could hardly be…
The people from the sea
Encounters with those who have risked their lives to cross the Mediterranean
Indulge your inner reptile
What do you get if you cross renegade psychoanalyst Carl Jung with lizard-men conspiracist David Icke? It is a question…
A deadly silence
One Friday, 28 people were rescued by the Italian coastguard when the boat on which they were fleeing Libya capsized in…
The dreamer
Ian Thomson on the creative limbo that spawned Fellini’s modernist masterpiece, 8½
The Vatican
The sun has only just risen in Rome and we are standing bleary-eyed in a short queue outside the Vatican.…
Venice
I arrived in Venice believing it would reek of sewage. It didn’t. The walk into the centre went through cobbled…
Worshipping la dolce vita
Like so many Britons who chased the dream and woke up in Italy I have contemplated writing a book about…
Diary
Dry January is tougher than it sounds. Well, for me anyway. It’s now been some 28 days since I’ve had…
The joy of six
Why I’m glad to have five children, with a sixth on the way
Winter Diary
A few days ago I went truffle hunting in Piedmont. It’s been a bumper year for white truffles in northern…
Letters
The state of Italy… Sir: Ambassador Terracciano’s letter (Letters, 1 November) about Nicholas Farrell’s article (‘The dying man of Europe’,…
No safe haven
Britain’s appalling record on refugees is a moral failure, and national disgrace
Letters
Italy’s to-do list Sir: You would expect a long letter of rebuttal by a piqued senior diplomat in response to…
Italy takes the stress-test booby prize as the old Spanish fox emerges the winner
Continuing last week’s theme, it was the Italian banks — with nine fails, four still requiring capital injections — that…
Remember the Negroni Index? At last I’ve found a market that never stops rising
This dispatch comes to you from Venice — where I arrived at sunset on the Orient Express. More of that…
The dying man of Europe
Italy is in terminal decline
