Watch Italian TV news online

What do Italian families do at 8pm every day? They dine together and watch the evening news (Telegiornale).
RAI is the Italian public TV network and encompasses three main channels: RAI 1, RAI 2 and RAI3. While all three channels collaborate on reporting national and local news, they have been historically characterized by different political views of their respective newsroom management.

Nevertheless, RAI has stepped up considerably their commitment to Internet programming and they have been publishing online a wide variety of shows including my favorite Telegiornale, called TG1.

Here is how you can watch it too. Go to RAI Web site and click on the TG1 icon indicated by the arrow.



The latest TG1 video edition will show up in a pop up window and stream for 30 mins (you may need to enable pop ups for this site).
Don't forget to browse around for a wealth of other TV and radio shows including documentaries and cartoons for the youngest. Yes, everything is in Italian of course...

Rick Steves' new Italy audio walking tours

Rick Steves is a popular writer of European travel guidebooks and host in several travel shows on public television and public radio. His excellent Italy guides offer plenty of detailed information on places to visit and affordable accommodations in main Italy destinations (N.B. Our eBook is a perfect companion of Rick's guides as we focus on the Italian culture and how to deal with everyday things in your trip).

Among his new media initiatives that I like the most are the FREE audio walking tours of Rome, Florence and Venice.
These audio tours are downloadable MP3 files narrated by Rick himself that you can put on your portable device such as an iPod or SmartPhone. Rick explains the history of places like the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum, the Uffizi Gallery and other important locations as if you were hiring a dedicated guide.

I praise Rick for embracing blogging and podcasting as a way to create conversations with his audience and I look forward to see his audio tours start covering more areas outside the classic tourist circuit.

Podcast #16 - Folk music from Milan

I CantaMilano are an Italian folk group performing traditional and popular songs from Milan. The lyrics are sometimes in local dialect and they tend to narrate romantic and fun stories of how simple people used to live in the past. I had the pleasure to record a few songs from them during a brief visit to Milan a few months ago.


Listen / Download this episode in MP3 format
(12Mb - 16:41 mins)

Don't miss future podcasts!