Police found that up to 75 per cent of council employees in San Remo failed to show up for work, including a security guard who regularly turned up in his underpants, punched his time card and then promptly went back to bed.

They were meant to be part of a cunning disguise to elude capture, but the fake beards worn by a pair of robbers in Italy proved to be their downfall.

They talk a lot about the light in Tuscany, but Michael Lamb found the darkness just as intriguing in Siena.

Italy is bracing for an invasion of caramel frappuccinos, skinny soy mochas and cinnamon dolce lattes amid reports that Starbucks is to open its first outlets in Milan.

A family holiday in Italy and France avoids the big towns and bright lights and finds the pleasures of rural living and small communities.

A string of picturesque fishing villages known as the Cinque Terre fear they are being suffocated by mass tourism.

Drunken British architects are facing obscenity charges after police catch them cavorting naked in Rome fountain.

A three-hour rail trip across Sicily gives Linda Herrick a glimpse of its ghost towns.

An Auckland University lecturer has won a major international film award with his film Free in Deed.

Italian Government commits over $30 million to restoring historic Rome arena.

Why hire a car in Italy when you can travel like the locals? asks Venetia Sherson.

The mayor of Palermo has urged European Union leaders to respond to "a genocide caused by European selfishness".

A wooden fishing boat packed with at least 600 migrants overturned in the Mediterranean Sea and hundreds are feared dead.

Pint-sized Kiwi Kim Allan intends to run Tor des Geants next month - a 330km non-stop race through the Italian Alps that she must complete in under 150 hours.

Italian drivers who drink a bottle of wine before getting behind the wheel could face a fine of just a few hundred euros.

Eternal City is in chronic decline as a result of a toxic mix of corruption, debt, poor administration and shabby infrastructure.

More than 1.6 billion ($2.6 billion) worth of assets have been seized from a family of five Sicilian pensioners in one of Italy's largest anti-Mafia operations in 20 years, say Italian police.

The New Zealanders collected six medals at the Varese regatta in Italy early yesterday, including four gold, and that without the golden bankers.

They hoisted up tens of thousands of terrified wild animals to the blood-soaked sands of the Colosseum.

Scenery, great food, no packing and not too much exercise... that all suits Roger Hall.

Italy is now the only western European country that does not recognise either same-sex marriage or civil unions.

All Italy stops to watch a spectacular boat race that's been contested for more than 700 years, writes Carol Smith.

A picture of a young boy who drowned off of the coast of the Greek island of Rhodes has come to represent the tragedy in the Mediterranean sea.

A cafe owner found so much archaeological treasure buried beneath his property that he now has a museum. Michael Day hears his story ...

A shipwreck in which hundreds of people are feared dead may be one of the worst disasters of the Mediterranean migrant crisis.

Venice is the setting for Nicky Pellegrino's new novel. On a fact-finding visit she strayed into richly rewarding back streets.

Bev Wood experiences the Italian capacity for both wild frenzy and languid indolence.

For most of their adult lives they have been entangled in one of Europe's most intriguing murder mysteries, prime suspects in the near-inexplicable murder of a young Englishwoman in Italy.