For all high quality design and furniture addicts, the renowned and very expected event Salone Internazionale del Mobile – the international furniture fair – has come back in Milan!

The trade fair Salone Internazionale del Mobile as usual will take place in the city of Milan from April 14th to 19th 2010, together with the International Furnishing Accessories Exhibition inside the same showroom. Both fairs will offer you the best you can find on the international market, all kinds of furniture and furnishing accessories and all the styles, from classical to modern design.

In addition, also this year visitors will find other two biennials: Eurocucina with its side event FTK and International Bathroom Exhibition, together with the Salone Satellite, the area exclusively dedicated to young designers.

From April 14th to 19th, the fair will be reserved to the professionals of the sector, whereas it will be open to public on Sunday 18th April from 9.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m.

You will be spoilt for choice! This fair is for whoever

Yes, you’ve got it! This year the 10th edition of Milano City Marathon will finally have its official medal, which will award all the participants who will be able to cross the finishing line on April 11th.

As the Milano City Marathon press agency affirmed, the medal design has been chosen among several projects created by students of Liceo Artistico Boccioni of Milano, Istituto Professionale di stato Caterina da Siena of Milan and Liceo Artistico Villa Reale of Monza who participated in the competition.

As it used to be, visitors will find also the Marathon Village, which will be set up in Largo Feltrami from Thursday 8th to Sunday 11th April. In addition, the most expected sport event in Milan schedules important side events: the Charity Program, linked to the Relay Marathon, and the Milano School Marathon.

We’re talking about not only a day dedicated to fun and sport, but also an opportunity to

Of course, also the original and up-to-date Blog about all the news & events in Italy and the main Italian cities is now on the most famous social network in the world: Facebook!

Now you can find all the information you need also on the page of About Italy on Facebook! It’s really easy, become our fan and you will receive real-time updating about events, exhibitions, performances, sport and cultural events in the most beautiful Italian cities: Florence, Milan, Pisa, Rome, Siena, Turin, Venice…and don’t forget about the valley of Mugello, the Versilia coast and the Region of Liguria!

Italy is full of wonderful places to discover and visit among mountains and the sea, from the North to the South…you will be spoilt for choice! In order to know the events of the week, you need just a click and will find

This great personal exhibition of the known photojournalist Steve McCurry, organized by the Municipality of Milan and the Royal Palace, covers the period of thirty years of direct experience of the photographer with simple people in complicated life’s circumstances.

The exhibition, called SOUTH-EAST, shows us over 200 moments captured by the lens of the photographer during his trips in South and East, mostly Afghanistan, India, Tibet and Burma.

His well known portrait of an Afghan girl in a refugee camp in Pakistan arrived all over the world and remained one of the most known and most beautiful in the field of photography. It was very emotional the moment when McCurry found again the girl, 17 years later, now as a mature woman, and made her new portrait which captured all the experience and suffering of the years that had passed and let their mark on her face.
Like these, there’s a lot of other photos at the exhibition that tell us about joy and torments in life. Great patience of the photographer rewarded him with the possibility to capture a glimpse at people’s soul, mistrustful at the beginning.

The extraordinary adventure and carrier of Steve McCurry started when

In the occasion for the famous Milan event Triennale di Milano we have the opportunity to visit the playful exhibition organized especially for the young ones.
MUBA, in cooperation with ABM (Bruno Munari Association) and Edizioni Corraini has combined the impressive work of the artist Bruno Munari dedicated to children and arranged it as a special game concentrated on sensibility, curiosity and interest of youngsters at the age of 2 through 6.
The surroundings, full of colors and different forms, organized to involve, wake up curiosity and enable participation of the little visitors, is an excellent occasion to amuse and connect children from nursery and primary school among them and with the work of Bruno Munari.
Hurry up if you’re interested, there are only few days left! The exhibition lasts until January 24th, 2010.

Opening hours are fixed and the number of visitors is limited.
Tuesday to Friday at 17:00
On Saturday, Sunday and school holidays: 10:30; 12:00; 14:30; 16:00; 17:30
Tickets:
-Children €8
-Adults €5
-Schools and groups €6
Where: Triennale di Milano

For further information about museums and events in Milan please visit our website www.aboutmilan.com

The famous old lady called Befana and beloved by all Italian children is coming to Italy!

With her old tatty shoes, this funny and lovely old lady has always made children, teens and adults very happy, bringing sweets, candies and chocolates in her multicolored socks!

This year, you will have the chance to see the Befana and to celebrate her in several Italian cities and villages, which want to go on with traditions.

For instance, in Rome there will be the 25^th edition of the beloved event “Viva la Befana” (“Long Live the Befana“), the traditional historic and folkloristic costumed parade which will bring to the capital many musical bands, folkloristic groups, in a historical commemoration with hundreds people who will parade following the Wise Men and the Befana along Via della Conciliazione.

In addition, in Borghetto Santo Spirito, a little village in the province of Savona (Region of Liguria), there will be a really funny event: the election of “Miss Befana 2010″, a

Where are you gonna spend this New Year’s Eve?

In the Belpaese, you will be spoilt for choice! We would like to remind all our visitors the best events and parties organized in the most beautiful Italian cities, where you will find great celebrations, fireworks, music at full volume, dances and delicious wine and food.

The cosmopolitan city of Turin, in the region of Piedmont, in 2010 will be elected “European Capital of Youth”. In order to show such a merit, the young city of Turin for the New Year’s Eve 2010 organizes a special evening with loud music, a concert which will take place in Piazza Vittorio Veneto from 9.30 pm, an event dedicated to people under 35! The absolute protagonists of the night will be the famous English group Groove Armada and the American group Juliette Lewis and New Romantics, followed by many other artists until midnight, when it will be time for spectacular fireworks.

In Milan on the other hand,

The last film exhibition of 2009 and the first of 2010 will take place in Milan in company with Stanley Kubrick and Charlie Chaplin.

At Fondazione Cineteca Italiana in Milan, precisely at Spazio Oberdan located in Viale Vittorio Veneto, there will be several interesting appointments waiting for you with the most famous pieces of cinema. Yes, because the cineteca has scheduled a rich program dedicated to all big-screen movies addicts.

In fact, Wednesday 23^rd December 2009 will be a day entirely dedicated to the master of silent film: Charlie Chaplin, with the special event “Un brindisi di Natale con Charlie Chaplin” (“A Christmas Toast with Charlie Chaplin”), an original way of cineteca‘s to wish a merry Christmas to all the cinema addicts, in company with the most famous figure in cinema history, a face never to be forgotten.

In the afternoon, the program schedules the screenings of two Chaplin’s masterpieces, “The Great Dictator” and “City Lights”, whereas in the evening, there will be 4 extremely rare films

Hey folks, the moment has come!

With no doubts people love and hate them, but the season of Christmas markets has come and it will be in all the Italian cities!

Colored lights, stands full of sweets, traditions and handicrafts products, toys and decorations will be placed along the streets and in the most famous (and not) squares in Italy. So, get ready to snoop around, nibbling and why not, to purchase the first Christmas gifts!

From Sicily to Valle d’Aosta, Italy in this period is full of such nice markets which welcome many Italians and foreign visitors, who come here to just take a look at the stalls rich of curious and original things. The list is endless, but we want to remind you the most unique noteworthy ones.

So…how not to mention the very famous Christams markets typical of

The year 2009 is ending, but Milan‘s passion for Japan is still alive.
Infact, over the last 12 months “Samurai” and “Monet and Japan” already took place at Royal Palace in Milan, both of them with great success.

Now it’s time for “Japan. Power and Splendour (1568-1868)”, on the calendar in the same location from 6th December 2009 to 7th March 2010.
A refined exhibition, which will give the possibility to marvel at one hundred of precious works of art, coming from the most important Japanese museums: elegant ceramics, paintings on  paper and silk, decorated textiles, masks and armours… in homeland considered as true national treasures!

All the works on display were created during two crucial moments of Japanese history: the periods Momoyama (1568-1615) and Edo (1615-1868). About three centuries marked by the fall of the ancient society, traditionally based on the power of nobles and Samurai, and the gradual rise of a bourgeois middle class, rich but still excluded from the political power.

They were the new producers and consumers of art, and they are the protagonists of the works on show in Milan. This exhibition narrates us vices and