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Cheap Hotels in Italy
Hotels in Italy
Its own people refer to the country of Italy as Belpaese meaning beautiful country. Italy stretches from the Alps in the North to its Mediterranean boot. Also with its two beautiful islands of Sicily and Sardinia and of course its principality’s of San Marino and the Vatican City. For thousand’s of years Italy fought of invasions from the Germanic, Celtic, Frankish, Greek and Norman nations, to mention only a few.
Italy today though is a modern country with GDP at sixth in the world as well as a member of the G8. The country was also a founder member of the European Union and signed up in Rome in 1957. Italy’s influence on culture and social development in the history of the Mediterranean is unrivalled. Modern Italy became a state in 1861 on the 17th of March up until this date most of the states on the peninsula were under king Victor Emmanuel II who ruled over Piedmont and Sardinia.
Responsible for bringing the unification together were Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the chief minister of King Victor and Giuseppe Garibaldi who was a General and a national hero. Rome however for almost ten years remained under the rule of the papacy and did not become part of Italy until the 20th of September in 1870. The Vatican though remains an enclave surrounded by the city of Rome.
Religion in Italy
The Roman Catholic faith is by far the most followed religion in Italy with records showing that at least 87% of the population follow the Roman Catholic faith.
Records also show that one in five of those who follow the faith attend regularly mass, this figure is even higher when applied to the elderly.
The second largest group after the catholic faith is Jehovah’s Witnesses who total around 400,000 members with continuos annual growth. There are also about 30,000 Jews and Buddhists living in Italy.
Languages in Italy
Italian is spoken throughout the country, however there are a number of separate languages that do exist also.
In the north of Italy is the province of South Tyrol were German is spoken mostly throughout the region. This area of Italy was given to them after the First World War and her defeat of the Austrian Hungarian Empire. There are a total of more than 300,000 Italians who speak German as their first language. There is almost 120,000 people who also live in the Aosta Valley were they speak with a French dialect very similar to French and is called Patois. Another boarder region were a different dialect is spoken is in the North East near the boarder with Slovenia.
The largest group of non speaking Italians is the Sardinian’s who total more than 1.5 million and speak there own Sardinian language this evolved independent from Italy. In modern Italy with arrival of immigrants from such country’s as India, Turkey, China, and Arabia these all add to the variations of languages spoken in Italy today. With also a growing population of Jews and Muslims Hebrew and Arabic can now often be heard when travelling through Rome.
Italy Embassy
For your convenience we have listed Italian embassys below. Embassys can provide you with information regarding visas and other important travel information.
