Via Crucis Rome

Happy Easter everyone! If you are in Rome tonight, do not miss the Via Crucis – the commemoration mass with the Pope outside the Coliseum. A mass held every Good Friuday in memory of the Christian matures who died in there.  First time hold in 1991 by late Pope John Paul II.

Starting at 21:00 and goes on for approximately 2 hours. But come early, you will not be alone. Last year

Roamn Legion

Always wanted to be a Gladiator? Want to fight like the legionnaires did? It is all coming available now. New astonishing facts are beginning to leak about the collapsed roof at the Domus Aurea this last Monday. The work under way was not restoration works. It is really foundation works for a new amusement park in the Eternal City – The Gladiator World. A complete amusement field, much like Disney world is taking shape in the park overlooking the Coliseum.

Here children – and adults – will be able to attend Gladiator school, train to become a legionnaire, and other more daily life things from the Roman era. For parents, maybe while kids are fighting the battles at the New Coliseum, will be able to attend classes learning to construct aqueducts and to build a house without any modern tools. Might be a good thing for the bored teenager as well.

The food will be typical Roman, with compliments of grilled bore burgers – but no wine for the younger ones.

Coliseum on fire

The most eye catching thing about these plans is still what caused the land to collapse over the Domus Aurea. Here, with a view of the Coliseum and the whole city, will be place a giant window called Nero’s Window – look through this and you will be able to see the city of Rome burning – just like in they year 64 AD.

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

Until June 29, 2010 the city of Rome will host the exhibition “Corot to Monet – The symphony of nature”.

The exhibition will show more than 170 works which shows the evolutionary path of the Impressionists way of presenting the natural landscape, starting from the early innovations of the painters of the Barbizon School to end with the triumph of the color of Monet’s Waterlilies.

The exhibition is hold at the Complesso del Vittoriano and is organized through collaboration with prestigious private collections and major museums around the world (including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum New York City, the National Gallery in Washington, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg)

Hours
Monday to Thursday: 9:30-19:30
On Friday and Saturday: 9:30-23:30
Sunday: 9:30-20:30

Domus Aurea

This morning parts of the roof of at Nero’s Golden Palace in Rome, Domus Aurea, collapsed this morning. Workers were doing repairs when parts of the roof collapsed, which in turn led to the garden on top of the roof collapsed inside the palace in an area of about 100 square meters. No one was injured, however.
Domus Aurea is situated on a hillside overlooking the Coliseum which was built during the first century after Christ and the site has been plagued by problems since it opened to the public 1999th.
Nero’s Palace was built after the Great Fire of Rome 64 years, it was intended more as a pleasure house than a residence. In addition to it’s gold leaf surface, the walls of the villa was covered with frescoes and semi-precious stones.
According to experts, the portion of the roof that collapsed was built later than the Palace, and known as Trajan Gallery. Trajan became emperor Nero after half a century and built the pool, known as the Baths of Trajan, on top of the Domus Aurea.
Tuesday’s collapse is expected to relaunch the debate about the poor condition of Rome’s crumbling monuments are in.
Domus Aurea was closed for over a year from the end of 2005 since the Ministry of Culture announced that it could not ensure visitors’ and staff safety.

Arista alla Fiorentina

Today’s cooking is a perfect dish to prepare ahead. Arista alla Fiorentina is actually as good served cold as warn.

Arista derives from the Greek word aristos, meaning “best”. According to tradition, some Greek clergymen which visited Florence in 1430 for a Ecumenical Council were served the Tuscan-style roast pork and found it “aristos” or very good. The dish has been called this ever since then.

Ingredients, serving 4:

*1 kg boneless center-cut pork loin roast
*3 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
*3 large cloves of garlic, minced
* salt and black pepper
* olive oil
* cooking string

Preparation

Mix rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper. Make deep cuts into the pork roast, the cuts with the mixture, leave some to cover the surface of the meat.
Tie the roast with the cooking string in order to maintain its compact shape and ensure even cooking. Pour the oil in a large pan and put it on medium heat. Add the pork roast and roll it slowly until the entire meat is browned on on all sides. Now place the roast in a deep pan and put it into the oven to cook at 180°C for about an hour and a half. Check the roast periodically and baste with the pan juices, turn the roast over every once in a while.
The roast is done once the thickest part of the roast has reached 80°C. If you don’t have one, stick a thin knife in the thickest part of the roast; the roast is done when no pink liquid comes out of the hole.
Place the roast to a cutting board, cover with alumnimum foil and let it rest for about 15 minutes. Slice the meat and serve with the pan juices.

Serve with patate al forno – Buon Apetito!

The Italian businessman

An Italian businessman on his deathbed called his good friend and said, “Luigi, I want you to promise me that when I die you will have my remains cremated.”
“And what,” his friend asked, “do you want me to do with your ashes?”
The businessman said, “Just put them in an envelope and mail them to the tax collectors …and write on the envelope, ‘Now you have everything.’

Luigi and Paolo

Luigi and Paulo were fishing in the Mediterranean sea one sunny day when a World War II mine came floating along. On seeing this round, spikey object coming nearer and nearer, Luigi shouts at his friend ” Hey Paulo, it’s a mine, it’s a mine!!!” Paulo replies ” O.K. Luigi, you can-a have it!!! ”

?!?!

What do you call an Italian with his hands in his pocket? – A mute

A Greek and an Italian

A Greek and Italian were sitting in a Starbuck’s one day discussing who had the superior culture.   Over triple lattes the Greek guy says, “Well, we have the Parthenon.”

Arching his eyebrows, the Italian replies, “We have the Coliseum.” The Greek retorts, “We Greeks gave birth to advanced mathematics.”

The Italian, nodding agreement, says, “But we built the Roman Empire.”

And so on and so on until the Greek comes up with what he thinks will end the discussion.   With a flourish of finality he says, “We invented sex!”

The Italian replies, “That is true, but it was the Italians who introduced it to women!”

Romantic Rome

The world’s sexiest city – Rome. At least according to the Sunday Times Travel Magazine. Together with Rome you find Paris, London, St Petersburg, Havana and the city of Bath. So we can conclude that founded Bath an London, and turned Rome and Paris into metropolises, they did not only knew how to conquer, construct aqueducts and assassin one another – they also knew how to make sexy cities.

Rome, according to the April edition of the Magazine, has “frothing fountains, cobbled piazzas and enough energy to launch a rocket” and is one of the “raunchiest” cities on earth. And in a proper British way the article suggests some sensual activities for visitors in Rome but not a single one of them takes place in the bedroom.

Milan

Rome is not the only Italian city to top a recently published list. According to weakly magazine the Economist, Milan is Italy’s most expensive city and the twelfth most expensive city in the world. Paris tops the list, followed by Tokyo, Oslo and Frankfurt. So the conclusion is: Rome is sexier than Paris, and cheaper, and has more bridges – we won!

Egon Schiele - Nu Assis 1910

At the Royal Palace in Milan, a much interesting exhibition on Egon Shiele (1890-1918) are opening at the moment. Schiele was regarded by many of his contemporaries as the predestined successor to Gustav Klimt, but died before he could fulfill his promise. His fascinating but not wholly admirable character is accounted for, at least in part, by his family background and upbringing. 40 paintings and works on paper by Schiele, accompanied by as many masterpieces by Klimt, Kokoschka, Gerstl, Moser and a variety of other representatives of early 20th-century Viennese culture.
The show focuses on the person Egon Schiele to reconstruct the cultural and social climate of Vienna in the early years of the 20th century, starting from the foundation of the Secession, through the expressionist trends of the next

Egon Schiele

generation, to 1918, the year that marked the end of the First World War and the death of Klimt and Schiele. A brief but intense period in which Vienna was transformed from the centre of Mitteleuropean culture to the theatre of the ruin of the old Europe.

Royal Place Milan

March 17 – June 6

Woody Allen

Maybe most know as a movie director, and actor Woody Allen is also a musician, playing with a impressive wibe the clarinet. At the moment he and his New Orleans Jazz Band, are touring Europe and will be in Italy at the end of the month.

The first concert will be on March 29th as they are playing at the Teatro Verde in Mentecatini Terme, near Florence. The day after they are on stage at the Gran Teatro Felice in Venice. The last concert lbe in Rome on March 31, at the Accademia Santa Cecilia.

Woody Allen and his New Orleans Jazz Band are playing a  quite unique mix of music

New Orleans Jazz

inspired by New Orleans jazz. Carrying a repertoire of over 1200 pieces from the 35 years of the band, the American director, with his inseparable clarinet will rise on stage  accompanied by extraordinary musicians as musical director Eddy Davis (banjo), Simon Wettenhall (trumpet), Jerry Zigmont (trombone), Conal Fowkes (piano), Greg Cohen ( bass), John Gill (drums).