Italy’s worst drought in 70 years has exposed the piers of an ancient bridge over the Tiber River once used by Roman emperors but which fell into disrepair by the third century. Two piers of Nero’s Bridge have been visible much of the summer near the Vittorio Emanuele bridge that traverses the river near the Vatican, a pile of moss-covered rocks where seagulls now sun themselves. The ruins of the ancient Roman Neronian bridge, emerge from the river bed of the Tiber river, in Rome, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia) The bridge was built in the first century for Emperor Nero to reach his gardens near the Janiculum Hill near what is present-day St. Peter’s Square, said historian Anthony Majanlahti. The bridge was already falling apart by the third century, traffic was...
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Italy’s worst drought in decades has reduced Lake Garda, the country’s largest lake, to near its lowest level ever recorded, exposing swaths of previously underwater rocks and warming the water to temperatures that approach the average in the Caribbean Sea. Tourists flocking to the popular northern lake Friday for the start of Italy’s key summer long weekend found a vastly different landscape than in past years. An expansive stretch of bleached rock extended far from the normal shoreline, ringing the southern Sirmione Peninsula with a yellow halo between the green hues of the water and the trees on the shore. People sunbath on the peninsula of Sirmione, on Garda lake, Italy, Friday, Aug. 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni) “We came last year, we liked it, and we came back this y...
Read MoreDrone search resumes on Italian glacier after avalanche Glaciers in Europe's Alps are becoming more unstable and dangerous as rising temperatures linked to climate change are reawakening what were long seen as dormant, almost fossilised sheets of ice. Italy has been baking in an early summer heatwave and attention had been focused on the impact of drought on crops on the fertile Po Valley. Punta Rocca summit is seen after parts of the Marmolada glacier collapsed in the Italian Alps amid record temperatures, killing at least six people and injuring several, at Marmolada ridge, Italy, July 4, 2022. REUTERS/Borut Zivulovic Further north in the Dolomites, tragedy struck on Sunday when a glacier collapsed on the Marmolada, which at more than 3,300 metres is the highest peak in the ...
Read MoreThe first Global Youth Tourism Summit concluded with the launch of the Sorrento Call to Action, a bold and ground-breaking vision for young people to be active participants in tourism’s restart and growth as a pillar of sustainable and inclusive development. The Sorrento Call to Action was adopted on the final day of the landmark summit, during a simulation of the UNWTO General Assembly and signed by 120 participants from 57 countries and aged between 12 and 18. It was drawn up based on the discussions of a series of webinars where young participants learned and shared their thoughts on some of the key issues facing tourism right now, among them innovation and digitalization, plastic pollution and the growing relevance of sport, culture and gastronomy for destinations. The document goe...
Read MoreStarting in January, Venice will oblige day-trippers to make reservations and pay a fee to visit the historic lagoon city, in a bid to better manage visitors who often far outnumber residents in the historic center, clogging narrow streets and heavily-used foot bridges crossing the canals. Venice officials on Friday unveiled new rules for day-trippers, which go into effect on Jan. 16, 2023. Tourists who choose not to stay overnight in hotels or other lodgings will have to sign up online for the day they plan to come and pay a fee. These range from 3 to 10 euros ($3.15 to $10.50) per person, depending on advance booking and whether it’s peak season or the city is very crowded. FILE PHOTO: A tourist takes a selfie in St. Mark's Square in Venice, Italy, Nov. 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Luca...
Read MoreThe first UNWTO Global Youth Tourism Summit will bring more than 130 young people from 60 countries to Sorrento, Italy, next week, giving them a unique platform to play a leading role in the future of the sector. The event, first of its kind, is organized by UNWTO and hosted in Italy in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and the National Tourism Agency (ENIT). It will unite global youth aged between 12 and 18 with leaders from across the sector, including politicians and key figures from the worlds of sport, gastronomy, entertainment and innovation. The Summit has received the medal of the President of the Republic of Italy and patronage of the Department of Youth Policies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Po...
Read More# String of tremors in 2016 killed 300, devastated cultural sites# Thousands of art works damaged when churches collapsed# Most damaged art work was in Marche and Umbria regions# Umbria has purpose-built emergency centre to receive damaged art# Many pieces may never return to original sites if not rebuilt At the opening of a new museum in the picturesque Italian town of San Severino Marche, the guests of honour did not dress up. They were firemen in gear worn when they rescued artworks damaged in earthquakes in 2016 and now restored and on display. Archbishop Francesco Massera points to a fresco at a new museum for art recovered and restored from churches damaged in a series of earthquakes in central Italy in 2016, in San Severino Marche, Italy June 11, 2016. REUTERS/Philip Pullella...
Read MoreItaly has been so successful in recovering ancient artworks and artifacts that were illegally exported from the country it has created a museum for them. The Museum of Rescued Art was inaugurated Wednesday in a cavernous structure that is part of Rome’s ancient Baths of Diocletian. The Octagonal Hall exhibition space was designed to showcase Italy’s efforts, through patient diplomacy and court challenges, to get valuable antiquities repatriated, often after decades in foreign museums or private collections. Exhibits in the new museum will change every few months as the objects on display return to what experts consider their territory of origin, many of them places that were part of ancient Etruscan or Magna Grecia civilizations in central or southern Italy. Votive terracotta hea...
Read MoreVenice’s Jewish ghetto is considered the first in Europe and one of the first in the world, and a new effort is underway to preserve its 16th-century synagogues for the Jews who have remained and tourists who pass through. For nearly two years, restorers have been peeling away paint and discovering the original foundations of three of the ghetto’s synagogues, which are considered the only Renaissance synagogues still in use, art historian David Landau said. Interiors of the 1528 Great German Schola Synagogue, of Ashkenazi rite, are seen in this picture taken in Venice, northern Italy, Wednesday, June 1, 2022. The Great German Schola is the first synagogue of the Venice Ghetto. (AP Photo/Chris Warde-Jones) Landau is spearheading the fundraising effort to restore the synagogues and...
Read MoreThousands of people revelled in the start of the annual Carnival celebrations in Venice on Saturday, marking a slow return to normality after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the two previous editions. The 2020 Venice Carnival, which usually draws tourists from around the world, was curtailed when the pandemic broke out in Italy in February that year and then cancelled the following year as the government sought to contain infections. Revellers wear carnival costumes to celebrate the Venice Carnival, in Venice, Italy, February 12, 2022. REUTERS/Manuel Silvestri "This is the Carnival of hope," said Venice resident Cristian Scalise. "COVID is ending and we hope to return to our life as always." Italy's rate of new COVID infections and hospitalisations has been gradually declining in re...
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