Italy Review Blog: Wednesday 7th April 2021

Good afternoon on Wednesday 7th April. On the day when millions of children returned to school, a large number of adults have taken to the streets of Turin to protest against the lockdown. There were similar scenes in Rome yesterday where restaurateurs in particular were voicing their concerns. 

Yesterday in Italy there were 7,767 new Coronavirus cases; a surprisingly low number considering the previous Tuesday had seen 16,000 new cases but it does seem too low to be a genuine reduction and more likely due to a reporting lag after Easter. Either way, it's promising, and if we compare the last seven days to the previous seven, there's an overall drop of 11%. 

A large consignment of Pfizer vaccines has arrived in Italy over the last 24 hours and those 1.5 million doses will be distributed among the regions forthwith. Yesterday there were a total of 187,854 new vaccinations carried out; still a long way short of the 500,000 per day we were promised by the Italian government a few weeks ago. In total there have been around 11 and a half million inoculations given out, with roughly 8 million of those the first dose and 3.5 million people having received both doses. 

It's still a bit chilly around the country today with some surprisingly-low temperatures in places like Bari where it's not expected to rise above 8° Celsius today whereas just 300 miles away in Catania it should get up to 22° C. Looking forward over the next week or so the situation doesn't change much and it looks as though it won't be until the second half of the month that things warm up again. 

Some tourism news comes from the region of Calabria: one of the national broadcaster's channels, RAI3 runs an annual TV show in which they search for the best villages in Italy. The Italian word borgo is used when we would use village, and RAI3's "Borgo dei Borghi" (Village of Villages), has just announced its winner for 2021. The accolade goes to the beautiful seaside town of Tropea on the Tyrrhenian Coast. 

Tropea is famous for its beaches with crystalline water and the Monastery of Santa Maria dell'Isola which sits atop a rock dividing the town's two main beach areas. The historic town centre is some way above the beach area and accessed via a steep staircase. From the town area you can get some wonderful views down on to the beaches but the best view of all comes from the garden behind the monastery. 

I'll leave you for today with a little taste of not just Tropea, but some of the other beautiful seaside resorts close by including Briatico, Vibo Marina, Marina di Zambrone, Capo Vaticano and Pizzo. 

​Buona giornata