tourism-italia.com

Now I’ve been to quite a few Italian restaurants in my time, but never have I received a bill for €695 for lunch. But that is exactly what happened to a Japanese couple in Rome last month at the Passetto restaurant. The tourists say that a waiter offered to bring them a few dishes which they did not choose and were then brought wine. However, when the bill came they were amazed to find that they had been charged so much money. Understandably, the story has angered mayor and does not do much for the reputation for Rome, which is already thought of by many as fairly expensive. So the moral of this story is, check what the price of what you’re ordering before you order or you may have big surprise when you get the bill!

An earthquake hit the cities of Parma, Milan, Genoa and Florence today, measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale. The National Institute of Geophysics in Rome has said that the epicentre of the earthquake was near Parma. According to Italian news reports, two churches have minor damage but no-one is injured. I have experienced earthquakes before and they are pretty scary stuff! I’m just glad that no-one was injured and that the magnificent architecture of Parma, Milan, Genoa and Florence was not damaged. However, for Italy this earthquake was relatively strong. The last strong earthquake occurred in Molise in 2002 and measured 5.4 on the Richter scale.

I have just seen an article on the FOX news website about how a Ryanair flight from Frankfurt had to make an emergency landing at Ciampino airport in Rome. Birds hit the aircraft on the approach to the airport and were sucked into the engine whilst landing! Thankfully no-one was seriously injured but the airport was temporarily closed. I have flown many times to Ciampino airport and it’s a very pleasant airport. Especially as it is also used as a VIP airport so who knows who you might see! ;D

By the way as I was there I looked for some Rome apartments. Here you find some good.