Stolen Gauguin Shows up in Sicilian Kitchen

Wow, this is a good one.  A stolen Gauguin worth between 10-30 million euros is found in a Sicilian kitchen of a retired autoworker...where it's hung for decades!  He bought the work for $100, supposedly fair and square, at an Italian State Railway auction in the mid '70s.  He also has a Bonnard from the same sale.  Obviously this guy has an eye for art.  The man's son had it appraised and the appraiser contacted the Carabinieri...oops!  Looks like a law suit will commence regarding who gets this beauty.

The most beautiful villages in Italy

You, too, may have stumbled across this article on buzzfeed recommending 15 must-see Italian villages.  It must have been hard to whittle it down to 15.

The Italian government has taken a much more in-depth stab at this list.  The Il Borghi piu d'Italia web site is slow to load (maybe a reminder to slow down?) but it's worth the wait.

The recommended villages are broken out into an interactive map - the north, centre and south, including Sicily.

There's also a hard copy book but it's in Italian. Even more reason to slow down and brush up on your language skills. At the bottom of the web site you can sign up for the newsletter, too. 

Even for devout Italophiles, there's bound to be some new towns for you to visit.

Vernazza, rebuilt after the 2011 mudslide, made the cut on both lists