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Italian election: An entire nation scratches its head as threat of fascism looms and economy teeters

Supporters of Matteo Salvini, leader of The League, Italy's ultra-right party, campaign ahead of Sunday's election. Photo by The Nation

If a cartoonist drew a group picture of the candidates, it’d resemble a food fight at Mickey Mouse’s clubhouse. Italy has more parties than Florida State’s Theta Chi house, and not one candidate Sunday will ever be mentioned in the same sentence as Caesar Augustus.
They include an 81-year-old three-time prime minister convicted for tax fraud with a runaway libido, a 31-year-old college dropout backed by a former stand-up comic, a neo-fascist who has declared war on immigrants, the previous prime minister who resigned just 15 months ago, a hot (Hey, it’s Italy) former female journalist just to the left of Eva Braun, two convicted of corruption and the crooner who sings “O Sole Mio” to tourists in Trastevere.
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My list of the most romantic dates in Rome: A city where every day is Valentine’s Day

Marina and I on Terrazza Baromini above Piazza Navona.

There is no better way to experience Valentine’s Day than in a romantic city without Valentine’s Day prices. Come to Rome — on any day but today. I’ve lived here as a bachelor for more than four years and have had an Italian girlfriend for nearly three. I’ve learned a bit about romance in Rome. And I’m here to help. So below is a list of some of my favorite romantic dates in the city.They won’t break your bank. Some take a little planning. Others take a little effort. But they all will leave you with a pitter patter in your heart and your lover in your hand.
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Handy tips on preventing illness overseas: Or why never to eat animal parts with hair

Grinning and bearing it while attending a game with the flu in 38-degree Frankfurt.

When you are sick overseas, even Shangri-la seems like the third circle of Hades. That’s where I just spent five days, curled up in a feverish pit in Hell where I barely had enough energy to crawl to a grocery store for food rendered as tasteless as last month’s Der Spiegel. This marks my 40th year of international travel. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky. I’ve had very few illnesses overseas, but a lot of it isn’t luck.
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Where to go in Italy in 2018? Here’s my annual off-the-beaten path list

Eating breakfast in the garden courtyard of Procida's Albergo La Vigna was one of the highlights of our year. Photo by Marina Pascucci

I have a better idea. In fact, I have 10 of them. If you daydream about Italy, go where few others go. Here is a list of 10 highly recommended off-the-beaten-path places I’ve been, mostly last year, during my combined 5 ½ years living in Italy.
Print this list (including links to expanded blogs of destinations), written in alphabetical order, and post it on your laptop instead of that gondola photo.
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Lithuania: The Baltic Tiger still smiling through gritting teeth from a bloody past

The town of Birstonas (pop. 2,800) sits atop a giant mineral spring.

The Orange County Register in Southern California recently sent me to Lithuania to report on a basketball story. It was about a comically loud and proud father pulling his two teenage sons from school to sign them up with a Lithuanian pro basketball team. The Ball family is getting mocked and praised in equal measure and I hopped on a media bandwagon that seemingly held the world’s entire free press.
But I was one of the few who went to Lithuania to cover the brothers’ debut. I was one of the few to experience the story’s beautiful backdrop, of a country that made following the dad’s babbling megaphone for three hours all worth it. Lithuania is one of the many jewels of Eastern Europe.
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Four years in Rome: An anniversary ode to my favorite city in the whole world

Four years ago today I arrived in this city and never plan on leaving.

Today marks my fourth anniversary of moving to Rome. Much has changed since I arrived with a duffel bag, two backpacks and a roller bag. I’ve met the woman I hope to spend my life with, my Italian has improved to where I naturally speak it before English and I’m bitching about Rome’s lousy public services.
But no, the honeymoon hasn’t worn off. I still wake up and take my cappuccino to my terrace and get weepy thinking how lucky I am to live in this paradise.
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Christmas gift list for 2017: Guess who’s been the most naughty and not nice at all

Christmas gift list for 2017: Guess who’s been the most naughty and not nice at all

Buon Natale tutti! Merry Christmas everyone from the Eternal City where Santa Claus decided to take up residence this year. Turns out, the North Pole heated up to where that long white beard and big red suit are just too warm. I just saw him walking through Piazza Navona on his way to see his elves in their workshop (they split, too) and I told him many rednecks, er, people in America think the higher temperatures are just cyclical.
“Cycle this,” he said as he stormed by me.
Well, I followed him and peeked at his gift list for all those naughty and nice. Turns out, the naughty ones are getting the most gifts which is why his first stop will be Washington. No one on Earth was more naughty this year than that Talking Yam we have in the White House.
So here’s the list. I’m sorry for ruining the surprises but after the year we all had, we’ve had enough of surprises.
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Matera: World’s third oldest city rocks Basilicata in more ways than one

The Sassi (The Stones) was once abandoned less than 40 years ago but now is Matera's nerve center. Photo by Marina Pascucci

Matera is the world’s third oldest city, according to Traveller magazine. Only Aleppo, Syria, and Jericho, Palestine, are older. So unless you like your pizza in a war zone, Matera is the place to explore. Matera was first inhabited in the Paleolithic Era which ended about 10,000 B.C. Back then, Matera’s inhabitants were discovering stone tools and how to hunt and gather. It has been continuously inhabited for the last 9,000 years. However, the neighborhood where I’m standing and where my Marina and I are staying, wasn’t around less than 40 years ago. It was abandoned, an empty shell of a novelty.
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AS Roma bringing joy to this once doomsday fan as it shocks Champions League

New coach Eusebio Di Francesco has made AS Roma one of the surprise teams in Europe.

Today, as the season finishes its first trimester, I am experiencing something new. It’s something all fans seek and few sportswriters can fully comprehend until they experience it themselves.
Pride.
I now understand what drives fans to paint their faces in school colors, wear team jerseys when they’re 50 years old and write angry emails to sportswriters. My AS Roma is, as the cliche goes, surprising everyone but itself. It has turned everyone’s doomsday prediction, including mine, into so much shredded newsprint.
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In the art capital of the world, a small shop in Rome keeps a dying art alive

Paolo Pugelli, in the Bottega Mortet shop, has been an artisan for 48 of his 62 years.

Carpenters, cobblers and tailors can still be found all over Rome. Gold and silver artisans? They’ve gone the way of the horse and buggy. But like the one or two horse and buggies that clop through my Testaccio neighborhood to cart tourists around nearby Centro Storico, some gold and silver artisans remain. They’re just not for tourists. They have a market ranging from learned art collectors to the Vatican.
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Apocalypse now: Why Italy flamed out of World Cup qualifying for first time since 1958

Alessandro Florenzi mirrors the feeling of his nation after the game. Photo NBC News

I’m 61 years old. I was a sportswriter for 40 years and have followed sports since the early 1960s. I don’t recall one nation embarrassing itself on a field of play as Italy did this year in World Cup qualifying. Its 0-0 draw with Sweden in Milan Monday, after losing 1-0 Friday on the road, sealed a fate unthinkable just last year. Italy, a four-time World Cup champion, has gone from taking Germany to a shootout in the quarterfinals of the European Championships to not qualifying for the World Cup for the first time since 1958.

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The Baths of Caracalla: But really, how clean were the Ancient Romans?

Terme di Caracalla were completed around 235 AD and hosted 6,000-8,000 Romans a day.

I recently toured Rome’s most famous baths, the second largest in Ancient Rome. Terme di Caracalla (Baths of Caracalla), less than a mile southeast of Circo Massimo, are only a mile from my apartment. I pass them all the time. On a warm fall day, I took the bus up the street and got off next to the complex.
The Terme di Caracalla look like a sandstone Legoland after your kid went at it with a 9-iron. Tall yellowish towers are interspersed with jagged walls enclosing massive halls with tiled floors.
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