Up in Italy’s highlands they still know how to make their own fun. Last night’s local sports bulletin featuring fiolet, rebatta and tzan hinted at a taste for the bizarre. Not for Valdostans a convenience–sport diet of Monday night football or cricket on the green.

But then the people of the Valle d’Aosta are a parochial bunch: these 120,000 mountain–dwellers secured an autonomy agreement and live under their own government. Stop in for a bite and you’ll clock some very un–Italian dishes on the menu—does your local trattoria serve Fontina cheese and cabbage soup?

Read the rest at Perceptive Travel.

The notion that sport and politics should never mix is a curious, and also deeply political, one. Sport, after all, is just the waging of international politics by other means. Ask the East Germans.

Rarely has the mix been quite as fruity as this weekend’s end to the Italian football season [Read more →]

Here’s a lesson for guidebook writers: never, ever make predictions about football.

What we wrote in the book, p. 142:

They might not be a household name, but AS Livorno are a team on the up. In 2004 the team returned to Italy’s elite Serie A after a 55-year wait…

It was the kiss of death, clearly. Yesterday, the team were relegated after a 1-0 home defeat by Torino. [Read more →]