I received a bizarre email from Booking.com recently. The subject line was “Here’s a surprising fact about Italians and travel“. But when I opened it, there was nothing about Italians at all, or any other nationalities. There was no editorial to be seen, just the usual Booking.com deals. I felt somewhat Booking.conned. What could it have been? Do Italians pack more toothpaste, condoms, shoes, lipstick, or whatever into their luggage than anyone else? Do they spend the least money at duty frees? Are they the people most likely to miss or hold up a flight? Do they get caught smoking in the aeroplane toilets more than anyone else? Is Italy the best or least represented nation in the mile high club? If you have any ideas, please let me know.
Talking of the bizarre, I found this on YouTube – an Italian singer paying homage to the skies of Ireland. It is Fiorella Mannoia singing Il cielo d’Irlanda. It caught my eye because of the typically Irish scenery used to illustrate the piece, which dates back to 1992. Personally I would have thought Irish skies might be a bit too grey for an Italian’s liking, but if Italians want to wax lyrical about the land of (most of) my ancestors, well, they can go ahead. So here is a scenic tour of Ireland with an Italian guide at the helm…
Fiorella has had an interesting career – apart from singing she has also been a stuntwoman and appeared in Spaghetti Westerns. You can read a typically flamboyant biography of her on the RAI website. To show her versatility, here she is singing something in a very different vein, the sombre Sempre e per sempre (Always and forever, or Forever and ever).
