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The Florentine
2010 has a distinctly futuristic ring to it, especially if you're one of those people who say ‘twenty-ten' rather than the clunkier ‘two thousand and ten.' Of course, now that we are officially living in the future, there's no excuse for any decidedly twentieth-century
Nobody likes an eco-Scrooge at Christmas time. An eco-Scrooge would tell you to save paper this festive season by wrapping all your gifts in newspaper, pages from magazines or the used wrapping paper you carefully conserved from last year. An eco-Scrooge might suggest cooking only as much
The bad news comes from Legambiente's annual report, Ecosistema Urbano, a collaborative project with the Istituto di ricerche Ambiente Italia and Sole 24 Ore newspaper. The report looks into the eco-credentials of 103 Italian cities and then ranks them. Most of Tuscany's major towns have sadly slipped
EUROPEAN WEEK FOR WASTE REDUCTION November 22-29 Be inspired by this Europe-wide initiative aimed at companies and individuals to reduce the amount of stuff thrown away. See the general website (www.ewwr.eu) and one specifically for Italy (www.menorifiuti.org): both sites are jammed with practical
I’m not a person who gets easily depressed. In fact, I’m usually annoyingly chirpy. Nonetheless, there are times while researching BeGreenInFlo when I come across something so dismal that even ...
Something strange appeared in suburban Florence about a year ago. We woke up one morning to find shiny brown bins for organic waste in the street and neat plastic bins and wads of organic-waste-disposal bags on every doorstep. The rubbish fairy had come in the night. According
The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano translated by Shaun Whiteside Doubleday €19,20 It's a terrible thing to say, but I was determined not to like The Solitude of Prime Numbers, the award-winning book by Italian author Paolo Giordano. I'd heard
When you’re in a foreign country, there’s a great temptation to leave all your green habits at home. After all, you’re only here for a few months and you ...
Some couples go shopping together. Some go to the cinema or out for a romantic meal. Others (read: my other half and I) think it's great fun to spend a morning touring Case Passerini, a rubbish-processing plant on the outskirts of Florence. Case Passerini processes Florence's
You know summer's here when travelling on the bus is like stepping into Dante's steaming Inferno and you get the urge to lie naked on your floor tiles at night with a couple of ice cubes tucked under your armpits. Fortunately, there are many environmentally friendly ways to
‘Leghorn’: the name doesn’t exactly inspire a visit does it? Considering that the city of Livorno is blessed with a very pronounceable name in English, it’s not clear how it ...
I love my bicycle. I love it more than I love tea, spaghetti with aglio, olio and peperoncino and waking up on a Sunday morning, thinking it's Monday for a second and then realising that I can snuggle down for another couple of hours. That's a lot of
This week I've being playing political hopscotch. Because the political playground in Italy is one of quickly forged alliances and easily dashed friendships, it is dizzying to keep up with who is in whose gang and who is no longer friendly with whom. It's not in Italy's
IIm exhausted and confused. IIve spent a week cycling round Florence (this article has a minimal carbon footprint) in a quest to find the cityys most eco-friendly vegetables. I chose to make an example of the humble courgette, comparing the cost of organic and non-organic varieties. After all,
Do you get green guilt? I cycle everywhere, I use sodium bicarbonate and lemons for cleaning, I water plants with washing-up water and I recycle every last yoghurt pot, tuna can and envelope. I even make my own compost. But despite all this, if I so much as chuck
The Book of Unholy Mischief is foodie heaven. Elle Newmark's historical thriller set in fifteenth-century Venice simply oozes food and recipes from every page. The story is narrated in retrospect by its main character, Luciano, who at the start of the book is a young scrap of a
I remember my first Italian boyfriend, who suggested taking his car and ‘going parking' one evening. I felt like I had suddenly been plunged into an episode of ‘Happy Days' with Ralph Malph trying oh-so-subtly to put his arm around a girl at the drive-
The family that brought about Pincocchio Park has given the world a refreshing new translation of Collodi's classic cautionary tale for children. Gloria Italiano, widow of Rolando Anzilotti, the mayor of Pescia responsible for creating the park, worked from the 1883 first edition, which is included in this dual-
The same team that brought us the small but perfectly formed Civilized Shopper's Guide to Florence now brings us an alphabetical guide to all things Italian. From the A of aceto balsamico to the V of vespa, this gorgeous little hardback has a classy 1920s look, each double-
