Rome Tour-Bernini in Rome - Walk Bernini's Rome Map

I was dreaming of Rome travel, a walking tour of Baroque Rome between plates of authentic pasta like cacio e pepe in one of Rome's many authentic trattoria Romana. A walking tour of Rome is the absolutely best way to see Rome - as Rome truly is "The Great Theater of the World". Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), who embodies Italian Baroque, lived most of his life in Rome, and adorned The Great Theater of the World that is Rome with his art, which is scattered around Rome's streets in the many fountains he designed from Piazza Navona to Piazza Spagna to Piazza Barberini, on its buildings, including the design of the facades of Palazzo Chigi and Palazzo Barberini, in its churches, and in the sovereign nation inside Rome that is Vatican City where Bernini was as Urban VIII (1623-44) called him the "Architect of St. Peter's". After the jump WebVisionItaly.com 2009 Rome Trattoria: Best Restaurants in Rome.

BAROQUE ROME: Walk Bernini's Rome Map

View Larger Map

Is it Alitalia and Air France-KLM?

It is reported that Air France-KLM Board
approved today a bid of $425 million in
exchange for shares in CAI, the investment
group which tookover some of Alitalia's in
assets out of bankrptucy. CAI's Board
will vote its Alitalia shares at a meeting
Monday in Rome.

Click to read full story on Bloomberg.

It is reported Lufthansa the second-largest European carrier
after Air France, is in contact with Alitalia and there is “still the
possibility of making an offer.”

Alitalia was put into bankruptcy administration on Aug. 29 after
political and labor opposition ended two years of attempts to sell
the airline, which was 49.9 percent state-owned.

On Monday January 12 all Alitalia passenger operations

will fall to CAI, a group of 21 investors led by

Piaggio & C. SpA Chief Executive Officer Roberto

Colaninno and including the Benetton

family’s toll-highway operator Atlantia SpA and

Intesa Sanpaolo SpA.

More on travel to Italy after the jump.

Rome Walking Tour - Bernini's Baroque Rome

Gian Lorenzo Bernini was born 1598 and is considered the embodiment of Italian Baroque. Join WebVisionItaly.com for a walking tour of Bernini's Rome from his early works at the Galleria Borghese to everyone's favorite Ecstasy of St. Teresa to his final years as the architect of the Vatican. Bernini started as a portrait painter but was recognized early as a great talent in sculptor. Bernini strived to unite the three arts, architecture, painting, and sculpture and used different mediums and light to achieve this dream. Enjoy this Bernini walking tour which includes the fountain in Piazza di Spagna and the fountain in Piazza Barberini. Bernini's most famous and most complex fountains may be found in Piazza Navona where he built the Fontana del Moro and the Fountain of Four Rivers.





View Larger Map

David Beckham in Rome: AC Milan Versus AS Roma

Former LA Galaxy Alexi Lalas told BBC that he thinks David Beckham may not return to the Los Angeles Galaxy and Major League Soccer after returning to life at the top of soccer's international dogpile with AC Milan.

Now that Becks is back on top playing with AC Milan, money, prestige, and fun may make it hard to head back to sleep LA Galaxy. Beckham will make his competitive debut for AC Milan against AS Roma in Rome on Sunday.

Read the whole story after the jump

David Beckham AC Milan Debut Update: Sunday January 11, 2009

Beckham played 89 minutes for AC Milan in its 2-2 tie against AS Roma at a packed Olympic Stadium in Rome.

Playing primarily a defensive midfield role alongside Andrea Pirlo and Clarence Seedorf, Beckham was involved in the game throughout but was not one of its lead characters. He took most of the corner kicks and a few of the free kicks, but his offensive contribution was otherwise limited.

Beckham took one shot on goal, but like swatting a fly it was saved without bother by Alexander Doni, Roma's Brazilian goalkeeper.

Victoria Beckham Lands in Rome

Victoria Beckham and her sons Brooklyn, Romeo, and Cruz arrived in Rome's Fiumicino yesterday. We typically leave Beckham watch to others but now that David Beckham is playing soccer with AC Milan we feel obliged to keep our readers aprised of their every move through bella Italia.

After the click most recent story from Beckham's in Milan and Rome.

For more news, information and travel to Italy offers click WebVisionItaly.com

Italy Travel - Carnevale di Ivrea

Carnevale di Ivrea has been through several iterations in the 400 years since its founding. Ivrea, Piedmont today features an exciting orange throwing festival and battle rooted in the middle ages when feudal lords twice annually would give beans to the people who were of course all poor due to the Lord's largess. The people would then ceremoniously toss the beans out the windows and into the streets giving the lords the proverbial middle finger. Sounds fitting in today's environment of $1.2 trillion deficits. Maybe even a lesson in there for we post-modern sophisticates. If your Italy travel brings you to Torino consider a stop in Ivrea, where the people took control of their town in a renaissance of public and civic spirit and pride and re-engineered their carnevale to represent freedom from the shackles of the past and a celebration of the towns new urban identity.

Galileo Revisited: May Faith and Science Co-Exist?

It is time to reconsider Galileo's great contribution to humanity in this year 2009 the 400th anniversary of Galileo's invention of the telescope.

While astronomy, like art, may seem the work of dreamers like Galileo, his invention of the telescope and subsequent contribution to man's understanding of the universe is integral to humanity's understanding of energy, space, time, and self.

Pope Benedict XVI stated Galileo the Italian astronomer and physicist helped the faithful better understand and "contemplate with gratitude the Lord's works."

In May, several Vatican officials will participate in an international conference to re-examine the Galileo affair, and top Vatican officials are now saying Galileo should be named the "patron" of the dialogue between faith and reason.

It's quite a reversal of fortune for Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), who made the first complete astronomical telescope and used it to gather evidence that the Earth revolved around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.

The church denounced Galileo's theory as dangerous to the faith, but Galileo defied its warnings. Tried as a heretic in 1633 and forced to recant, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, later changed to house arrest.

In 1992, Pope John Paul II declared that the ruling against Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension."

The Galileo anniversary appears to be giving the Vatican new impetus to put the matter to rest. In doing so, Vatican officials are stressing Galileo's faith as well as his science, to show the two are not mutually exclusive.

At a Vatican conference last month entitled "Science 400 Years after Galileo Galilei," the Vatican No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said Galileo was an astronomer, but one who "lovingly cultivated his faith and his profound religious conviction."

"Galileo Galilei was a man of faith who saw nature as a book authored by God," Bertone said.

The head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture, which co-sponsored the conference, went further. Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi told Vatican Radio that Galileo "could become for some the ideal patron for a dialogue between science and faith."

He said Galileo's writings offered a "path" to explore how faith and reason were not incompatible.

There were plans earlier this year to give Galileo a permanent place of honor in the Vatican to mark the anniversary of his telescope: a statue, to be located inside the Vatican gardens, donated by the Italian aerospace giant Finmeccanica SpA.

Italian news reports that this statue has been canceled and suggested the Vatican simply didn't want to draw so much permanent attention to the Galileo episode, which 400 years on, still rankles some.

We at WebVisionItaly.com look to the heavens during this Epiphany 2009 seeing the planets Venus and Jupiter lined up with the Moon, which makes us think about Magi following the stars that lead them to the baby Jesus. Of course astronomy, science, God, and religion may co-exist we think. Yet as war rages between Israel and Palestine it is manifest how precious rational human civilization is. How precious each soul is. Peace to all.