have you any unusal facts about italy?

It is the only country in the world where italian is spoken

Mickey Mouse is known as "Topolino" in Italy.

France and Italy produce over 40 percent of all wine consumed in the world.

In Italy the Apennine Mountains form the peninsula's backbone; the Alps form its northern boundary.

In Ivrea, Italy, thousands of citizens celebrate the beginning of Lent by throwing oranges at one another.

The actual smallest sovereign entity in the world is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. It is located in Rome and has an area of two tennis courts.

In Italy, Santa Claus is called Babbo Natale.

Florence was the first city to mint its own gold coins in 1252.

Italy is bounded by France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia to the north.

Every year there is a doggy disco held in Italy where owners can dance with their dogs.

Canned herring were called "sardines" because the canning process was first developed in Sardinia.

Napoleon had conquered Italy by the time he was 26 years old.

The Bank of America was originally called the Bank of Italy .

Cantaloupes are named after the gardens of Cantaloupe, Italy where this melon is believed to have first been grown.

Italy was discovered in 1872. Until then only centaurs lived there.

Ok that was a lie. These are true:

The Catholic Pope lives within Vatican City - a tiny country within the Italian city Rome.

In Rome the coliseum is actually called the Flavian Amphitheatre, it is known as the coliseum because it stands next to site of the Colossus of Nero (a giant statute long ago destroyed).

-Before being a right-winger fascist dictator , Mussolini started his political career being a (left-winger)socialist

-In the province of Bolzano , in North Italy at the border with Austria, most of the people speak only German despite their citizenship being Italian.

-It is said that Napoleon used to swear in Italian

-Talking about Italian dialects , if someone from North Italy (let's say , Milan) talks with a Southener ( from Naples...or Sicily , for example ) both of them speaking in their dialects , they just CAN'T understand each other. And probably the most difficult dialect is Sardinian,since it has been classified a language and NOT as a dialect.

-Italian is generally considered to be the language most closely resembling Latin

-In the Italian Parlament there are currently a transsexual deputy called Luxuria and the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini , Alessandra Mussolini. Years ago we even had a Hungarian porn star as a deputy 0_o ( it was clearly a provocation but she actually was in the parlament ! )

greetings from Italy :-)

Yes, I want to give the southern part of Italy some good PR.

Most people (especially Italians) think that Calabria, Basilicata and Apulia (Puglia) doesn't have much to offer but this is very wrong!

My wife and I have spent our 3 last summer holidays in this area and have come to love it (after traveling in all the other regions earlier).

Have a look at this site to get some more info:

http://www.italyexposed.com/Article_archive.shtml

PS! Read the article about Apulia....

The thermometer is an Italian invention.

The city of Naples gave birth to the pizza

The ice cream cone is an Italian invention.

The average Italian consumes 26 gallons of wine a year.

Italy has over 3,000 museums

italians LOVE english but they can't speak it

every "regione" is like a little country, with different tipical food, traditions and even dialects

for many italian children(now a bit less), it's S. Nicola who brings the presents on the 6 of decembre. In america San nicola became santa klaus

they eat pasta almost every day

ciao (did u understood I am italian??)

during world war 2 the Italian Navy practice their war games and to save money they never fired any real shells, so when the big battle came with the British Navy they couldn't hit any thing so they lost the battle of the Med. If they would have practiced with live ammo. the results would have been different.

Italy has more hotel rooms than any other nation in Europe

At the time of independence fewer than 600,000 Italians spoke Italian. Most spoke other languages or dialects