British climber dies in Italian Dolomites

Patricia Fletcher of Nantwich, Cheshire has died in a mountain climbing accident after a fall of some 300 metres on the Via Ferrata delle Trincee, above Arabba in the Dolomites, a spectacular mountain chain straddling Italy and Austria. Mrs Fletcher, 64, was on a holiday organised by Collett's Mountain Holidays. On its website, Collett's states that most routes were suitable for the 'man on the street' or at most are considered as of "medium difficulty".
The climber's body was recovered on Sunday by a helicopter from the Bolzano emergency rescue service.
sources: Telegraph.co.uk, Mail on-line.

Amanda Knox speaks..in Italian

Amanda Knox, the American student accused of the murder of British student Meredith Kircher in the university town of Perugia in Central Italy in 2007, has given evidence to the court this weekend claiming her innocence in the affair. The American also claims that she was beaten and put under pressure by Italian police after her arrest which led to the false accusation of local bar owner Patrick Lumumba, later proved innocent. Meredith was found strangled and sexually assaulted after a Hallowe'en party on November 1st 2007. She is accused of the crime together with her ex-boyfriend the Italian Raffaele Sollecito and Ivory Coast-born Rudy Guede.
Ms Knox gave evidence to the court assisted in part by an interpreter but also in Italian, which she says to have learnt better during her 18 months in prison.

Lamborghini - any colour but green

The Italian sports car manufacturer Lamborghini is the subject of the latest 'Greenwash' feature in The Guardian on-line. Fred Pearce's regular colum which exposes false environmental claims, gives details of the company's "green pledge" "to cut 35% from the carbon dioxide emissions of its cars by 2015". They are also putting 17,000 square meters of solar panels on the roof of its main factory at Sant'Agata Bolognese near Bologna, and introducing other measures such as better insulation to cut factory emissions by 30%.
Despite its efforts Lamborghini's model are at the bottom of the league of emissions with 495g of CO2 for every kilometre driven "more than three times the emissions from a typical saloon and five times that from the lowest carbon petrol cars."
Greenwash is translated into Italian for the weekly 'Internazionale' magazine.

New Roughguides for Italy

Roughguides.com and Penguin have just published two new guides to Italian holiday regions: Tuscany & Umbria and Naples and the Amalfi Coast.
Since both areas have recently become popular with British toursits, intelligent guidebooks are more than welcome.
Buy here and here.

Ancelotti goes to Chelsea

Chelsea have confirmed the appointment of Carlo Ancelotti as their new manager. The Italian has signed a three-year contract with the London club, continuing a tradition of Italian ties to The Blues.
Gianfranco Zola was one of the first Italians to join the Premier League when he was signed by Chelsea in 1996 and is considered by fans at the Bridge to be one of their greatest ever players. Claudio Ranieri also joined the club as manager in 2000 and went on to sign Frank Lampard. Swiss-Italian Robert Matteo also enjoyed success with Chelsea, among other things scoring the fastest goal in an FA Cup Final (43 seconds) in 1997 which Chelsea went on to win. Gianluca Vialli also had a chequered career at Stamford Bridge as both player and coach/manager, although he guided Chelsea to an FA Cup final triumph over Aston Villa in 2000.
Chelsea have just won this year's FA Cup at Wenbly beating Everton 2-1, although ironically Di Matteo's fastest goal record was broken by Everton.