What would be Italy without style?

Make sure you don’t get caught!

Gotta love the baggage claim signs at FCO…

Italy is romantic, sure. But Italy is far too romanticized, too.

While the Italy virgin surely holds hopes of evening strolls along calm waterways, perhaps stealing a kiss or two in the shadows of the Colosseum, or luxury shopping down Via Montenapoleone, to enjoy these things, it is almost comical the number of inconveniences that Italians seem to intentionally bestow upon foreign visitors.

Maybe it’s Italian pride, I don’t know. But I don’t possibly understand how urban planners, politicians, and the like can even fathom some of the design elements of Italy’s infrastructure that just make it impossible to navigate.

I’m no inexperienced traveler, either, by any stretch. With 43 countries under my belt, including four previous visits to this very country, I tend to be pretty street smart. I often rely on public transportation, I have a good sense of the layout of a city from just a quick glance at a map, and I manage to find my way. And yet in my last visit, which consisted of just 16 hours, I encountered not one, not two, and not three, but four massive inconveniences.

First, there is an express bus from Roma’s Fiumicino International Airport to Vatican City and Termini Station. Apparently. Despite having no fewer than 50 massive advertisements plastered throughout the arrivals area, finding the stop for it is virtually impossible. While it says “Bus Station No. 1” on the advert, it does not specify any operating hours, and does not give any additional instructions as to where this supposed Station No. 1 is. And when you follow the signs within the airport, the one that says “Shuttle” refers to a within-the-airport shuttle (despite the Express bus to Termini being called “Shuttle” as well). So upon that failure, I walked down to the “Local Bus Station,” only to find distance buses most of which do not go to Roma. The ones that did specify Roma on the departure screen were for the next day, and it was only about 23:00 at the time.

Upon making it on Trenitalia from Fiumicino to Roma Tiburtina Station, the timetable for the Metro specified that the last train leaves just after midnight. I was there about 10 minutes prior to that, only to find a roped off entrance area. This made me depend on a taxi, who typed my address into his GPS. I saw the route pop up, which was just two stops and about five minutes on the Metro, and it was about 3km away. About 20 minutes and 15 turns later, I arrived at my destination—with a 17 euro charge. I screamed at the man in English which he didn’t understand for driving me in a circle, making wild gestures, so he knew I had been here before, and he agreed to 10 euro, which I paid and left. Just expect it—if you don’t speak Italian, you will get ripped off by a taxi driver. If you don’t, it’s your lucky day. In my case, it was just funny that he insulted my intelligence by typing the address into the GPS, and continuously ignoring the suggested route as I watched the machine recalculate, and recalculate, and recalculate. He probably should have made sure I couldn’t see that, anyway, and may have gotten a few more euros out of me.

Fast-forward to the next day. I went to enter the Metro for the two-stop ride over to Tiburtina to catch a 14:03 train back to Fiumicino. When I was near the station, I realized I forgot something important at my friend’s flat, and literally sprinted back, about 800m, to grab it. I got on the Metro, and arrived at Tiburtina station at about 13:57…a semi-comfortable 6 minutes to make the connection. Except that at Tiburtina, as you exit the Metro, the overground trains are one direction, and the only place in the entire station you can purchase Trenitalia tickets is the other direction. Without a sign informing you of that, of course. So in my instinct, I just left Metro and walked towards my track platform, passing about 200m of wide-open hallway. And not a single automated ticket machine. In Italy, you cannot purchase tickets on board, either….so my only option to avoid a 100 euro penalty was to run back past the Metro, to the other side of the station where the ticket booth was. I saw a bank of about 20 automated machines, and was just dumbfounded why they could not put a single one of those machines either at the Metro exit, or in the direction of the train platforms.

I honestly believe that Italians do things this way just to laugh at foreigners…but that’s just my two cents.

Since we’ve got the whole February romance theme going on, here’s something courtesy of Fiumicino Airport!

Everyone knows about Italy’s male chauvinist reputation. Whether it is justified or not, every girl who mentions a plan to visit Italy will hear the same advice from those around her: Be careful around the aggressive men.

Having spent enough time here, I know it is pretty much harmless–lots of hooting and hollering but very rarely physical action. So while you may not have to worry for your safety, you, attractive woman, will have to accept being looked at like a juicy, t-bone steak.

So goes the reputation, anyway–a reputation that Italy has been trying to shake off for some time now.

And re-electing Silvio Berlusconi as Prime Minister for a fourth time in this month’s election (24-25 February) will not be the way to do that. Could you imagine Berlusconi even having so much as a chance to be elected in a place like politically-correct America?

If I recall correctly, Bill Clinton was nearly impeached from office for having an affair with a legal adult, despite his excellent track record in doing his job.

Yet, Mr. Berlusconi has closed the gap with the current frontrunner, Pier Luigi Bersani, and still has a shot to win the election (see Reuters article on the latest news here).

Let’s recall a couple of Silvio’s greatest examples of chauvinist buffonery:

• In the run-up to the 2008 Italian general election, Berlusconi said that female politicians from the right were “more beautiful” and that “the left has no taste, even when it comes to women.” It should be noted that he won the election.
• Around the same time, he criticized the composition of Spain’s Council of Ministers as being too “pink” because it was composed of an equal number of men and women.
• He compounded those comments by saying that Spain’s composition would be impossible in Italy, given the “prevalence of men” in Italian politics.
• And finally, let’s not forget the fact that he paid a 17-year-old girl an alleged $65,000 in 2010 so that she “would not have to become a prostitute.” Berlusconi was 73 years old at the time. And it should also be noted that he had sex with the girl. (Does this somehow not fall into the category of “prostitution” in Italy?)

Old Silvio and the 17-year-old girl he paid (for sex) “so she would not have to become a prostitute” (photo credit: telegraph.co.uk)

It will be interesting to see if he is elected yet again, in which case, the movement for gender equality in Italy will be set back a decade or two yet again.

All around the world, this weekend is one of celebration. But while most of the world dances the weekend away for Carnival, the town of Ivrea, at the base of the Alps in northern Italy, has a different method: pelting each other with oranges.

The annual Battle of the Oranges is the largest food fight in Italy–an organized battle of nine groups “competing” with each other by throwing oranges. Joey Phoenix of MyPublicHoliday.com has an excellent writeup of the battle, which I am showcasing below for you to enjoy.

The Battle of the Oranges get serious ’round here!

The Battle of the Oranges, Ivrea, Italy

(by Joey Phoenix; MyPublicHoliday.com)

In February of each year in the small town of Ivrea, in the north of Italy, something extraordinary happens. Corresponding with the end of the beautiful Italian Carnival season, an event occurs that leaves many people cowering in fear and stringing up nets to protect themselves. What is this that makes people so frightened that they hide in their homes, or so overwhelmed by temporary madness that they don masks and head into the fray?

It is a festival known as the Battle of the Oranges.

For weeks before the festival you can see thousands of crates being brought into the town center to be used in the events. Store owners and local businesses begin stringing up nets in order to protect their windows from the wayward throws of participants. Other bystanders purchase red scarves to wear around their head. This head garment is a symbol universally recognized as a protective measure, as the wearer of the red scarf does not wish to be struck by fruit.

Participants organize into a number of groups that war against each other in the town center during the battle. There are nine neighborhoods in Ivrea, and thus the teams are comprised of regions. Each participant pays €120 to enter, and this entry fee goes into the cleanup that occurs each night after the battle, readying it for the onslaught the following day.

For three days everything that moves, except those that are wearing red scarves (but even they are not impervious to the accidentally misguided orange), becomes a target for the Aranceri, or orange throwers. Brave men stand on top of carts, the less intrepid few duck behind them. But for this short period of time, the town center is a sea of orange as flying spherical fruits become projectiles. The event falls on the three days preceding Fat Tuesday. Although it is a fun celebration, it has a reputation for being slightly violent. Many of the group members wear masks to protect their head and faces. Coming out of the battle with a black eye or a broken nose is not an unlikely event.

The Battle of the Oranges has its origins in legend. Supposedly, the daughter of a miller named Violetta was once threatened with rape by a duke who was exercising his, at the time, legal rights over her. It was on Violetta’s wedding night to another man, but instead of surrendering herself to the brutal law, she decapitated the duke. Afterwards, the people, taking her defiance as a revolutionary symbol, charged the castle and established their liberation from their cruel overlords.

Each year, a young woman is elected to play the part of Violetta, and the people commemorate their freedom from the tyrants by becoming the Aranceri. These “orange handlers” are separated into two groups. The first of which become the “tyrants”, and stand in carts. The other half remain on foot, symbolizing the “revolutionaries.” The oranges are the weapons thrown back and forth. No one is quite certain as to where the usage of the orange originated, because they are not even grown indigenously. Some sources declare that the orange is meant to represent the decapitated head of the duke, or his removed testicles. But no one is quite certain. The original plant life thrown at tyrants were beans, as the poor serfs would throw them back at the lords who had given them the paltry vegetables.

Although spectators are not allowed to take part in the festivities, anyone from anywhere in the world can participate in the Battle of the Oranges as long as they pay the entry fee and aren’t afraid to get nailed by a few oranges. So, if you’re interested in the commemoration of a people declaring freedom, and the rising up of citizens against their cruel governments, then enter the Battaglia delle Arance. It is one of the only places in the world where you will have a legal right to throw large spherical fruits with astounding speed at perfect strangers. It’s not only legal, it’s encouraged.

In Ivrea, during the Battle of the Oranges, people completely lose themselves. It is a festival  that’s both dangerous and exciting – and everybody in the town comes out to watch.

Some characters on the wall of Monti Tiburtini metro station…

Italy and football go together almost as fittingly as Italians and pasta. The Azzurri (national team) are a national obsession, and the fans are just as fanatical about the top professional league, Serie A. While names such as Internazionale, Juventus and AC Milan have a major global presence, every club has its share of passionate supporters. I wonder, however, if they are aware that what they are watching is actually athletic theatre. Given today’s significance as Super Bowl Sunday in America, where players are supposed to perform “on the biggest stage”, I figured the timing is good!

What, you thought these games were actually contested on the field? I love Serie A as much as the next guy, but in the country that gave the world organized crime, it would be irresponsible to think that that activity has not trickled down onto the football pitch.

Match fixing became front page material (again) in 2011 when it came out that several former Italian footballers were involved in fixing matches across several leagues in the country.

To detail the extent of it, look no further than the autobiography of Matias Almeyda, an Argentine national who played for eight years in Serie A with Lazio, Parma, Brescia and Inter. Almeyda outlines stories of performance-enhancing drugs being fed to players through IV tubes before games: “They said it was a mixture of vitamins, but before entering the field I was able to jump as high as the ceiling.”

Perhaps more disturbing than the potential long-term health effects of these suspected steroids (Junior Seau, anyone?) are the close ties Almeyda talks about between some clubs and organized crime families.

After a disagreement with Parma owner Stefano Tanzi, Almeyda claims that his house was broken into, his car was stolen from his own garage, and a message was left on the wall with machine oil. That’s kind of like opening a box on your doorstep only to discover a pig’s head inside—well, maybe not that bad, but you get the point. What’s worse, Almeyda said the exact same thing happened to teammate Savo Milosevic after a similar issue with Tanzi.

Long live Serie A as a form of top-flight entertainment, but I’ll side with a few centuries of Italy’s organized crime culture over a few hodgepodge efforts of Serie A to clean itself up in light of some international media attention. And, I’ll keep watching, too!