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ITALIA - ITALY - ITALIE - ITALIEN - ITARIA

Everybody knows Italy... but do they for real?
A part the commonplace "Italy = pizza, mafia, latin lovers, art, maccheroni, o sole mio"... there is lot more and lot more interesting.
Italy is a Land of contrasts, a melting pot of cultures: you can find villages who can make you think to be in Germany or in France, or in Albany, or in Grece, or in north Africa, or... or... Did you know that there is also a small village in North Italy (Friuli) inhabited by former kossacs, who escaped Russia at the times of October Communist Revolution at the beginning ot this century, in which you can still hear a russian dialect?
Italy is a very old land (many places ar older than Rome, and that means with more than 3,000 years of History) imbebbed of etruscan, latin, greek, byzantine, celtic, albanian, turkish, spanish, catalan, french, provenzal, austrian, norseman, north african culture. (And surely I've forgotten something)
If you go to Tuscany's countryside you can meet people with exactly the same physiognomy of the statues you could have admired some few minutes before in an etruscan tomb... And if you go to Sicily, you can found villages inhabited by people with light blond hair and blue eyes, of norman descent, hence not so far relatives of Icelandic people... but in the neighbouring village you can think to be in arab land, with people with brown skin, dark hair and black eyes...
But in the same time, Italy is one united nation just by about 130 years, so is a very young nation. And this, togheter with the natural individualism of latin peoples (like french, spanish, portuguese, ladins, roumans) makes italian people one of the more individualistic I never met, but in the same time one of the most open to foreigners and different cultures.
Well, I love Italy, in spite of (or with) his negative points... I'm happy I was born in this land we italians call "Il Bel Paese" (The Wonderful Land)
Vittorio

Windmill No, this is not Holland!
This is Sicily, near Trapani...
Those old windmill were used for many purposes using the wind as a driving force for lack of water (watermills as in the north and center of Italy); now they have been restored and are mantained as a remainder of a not so ancient past. The were in use just some seventy years ago, when no electricity or gasoline engines were in use.

And this id Not Grece!
This is Calabria, a town called Stilo...
This old church in red bricks is one of the churches of the local Orthodox United Church of Bizantine descent. I love this small church perched on the rocks and I feel is one of the less known but most beautiful pearls of Italy. Perfect in his proportions, nicely inserted in the surrounding nature, is a vision of beauty, peace and mysticism... Church

	`No, this is not Holland!` This is Sicily, near Trapani... Those old windmill were used for many purposes using the wind as a driving force for lack of water (watermills as in the north and center of Italy); now they have been restored and are mantained as a remainder of a not so ancient past. The were in use just some seventy years ago, when no electricity or gasoline engines were in use.
`And this id Not Grece!` This is Calabria, a town called Stilo... This old church in red bricks is one of the churches of the local Orthodox United Church of Bizantine descent. I love this small church perched on the rocks and I feel is one of the less known but most beautiful pearls of Italy. Perfect in his proportions, nicely inserted in the surrounding nature, is a vision of beauty, peace and mysticism...

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This page, last updated:
June 8 th 1998

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