Really great piece of street art by ABOVE in Rome–and just a block from the Colosseum.

An international sand sculpture festival in Italy takes Dante's Inferno as its theme. Abandon hope all ye who enter here!

In anticipation of the G-8 meeting in Italy, Greenpeace sent homeless polar bears onto the streets of Rome to remind the world's leaders to act against global warming.

Michelangelo was such a stud. This is a great ad designed to encourage young artists to enter a competition for the New Young Artist Award at the Cerveira Biennial in Portugal.

A gorgeous ritual in which red rose petals are thrown through the oculus or eye at the top of the dome of Rome's Pantheon and flutter to the ground.

Amphicars were produced in Berlin between 1961 and 1968. This week Bernd Weise "drove" his 1961 model down the Grand Canal in Venice.

Wow! There's a Bulgari retrospective exhibit in Rome that traces the firm's history for the past 125 years. From 300 carat emeralds to Liz Taylor's private collection and much more - it's jaw-dropping.

Someone is putting these cool stencils all over Rome. They show a map of the city and tell you how many steps you are from the Aurelian Wall, a defense wall built in the 3rd century AD

Dan Brown's Angels & Demons opens today on the big screen and it's going to make you want to go to Rome. Angela Nickerson has published an absolutely free guide to the Rome of Angels & Demons and you can download it & take it with you.

On 27 May, the all-important UEFA soccer championship will be held in Rome. Organizers want to put up soccer fields with the Colosseum & Arch of Constantine as backdrops. Archaeologists are less inclined.

Pandamonium in Rome's Piazza del Popolo--thousands of paper-mache panda bears.

Hilarious modern "chariot races" were staged today in Rome's Circus Maximus in honor of the city's 2762nd birthday.

Nice ads for Localite Power Gel glue: strong enough to restore some of the world's most iconic antiquities to their former glory!

Europe's largest Easter Egg was broken in Rome over the weekend. Pieces of this dark chocolate monster were sold to the public and proceeds will benefit victims of the recent earthquake in the Abruzzo.

The Tobu World Square theme park in Japan has 1:25 models of more than 100 World Heritage Sites. It's a small world after all!

New ads for the Intrecci hair salon in Milan are meant to convince you that their stylists are artists. The tagline reads: "To Be Finished at Intrecci."

Armando Testa's new ads for Cuki foil make us giggle. "Keep it safe" is the tagline.

A really cute game on the website of the National Museum of Scotland teaches kids how to dress a Roman soldier.

The magazine La Cucina Italiana is celebrating its 80th anniversary with a brainy advertising campaign that reminds viewers that cuisine is culture in Italy.

Archaeologists in Venice have uncovered the skeleton of a medieval plague victim. Buried with a brick impaled in her mouth, it seems there was fear that the woman was a vampire.

If you were wondering which delivery service the Greeks relied upon when they sent that gift horse to the city of Troy, a nice new DHL ad campaign has the answer.

Someone has created a hilarious (fake) Facebook page for the ancient epic, the Aeneid. The Trojan War has never been so hip! Maybe this is the Cliff's Notes of the 21st century.

In Naples, Italy, there's a tradition of including everyone from bakers to pizza makers in nativity scenes. Current events play a role too: this year the Obama and McCain figurines are incredibly popular.

Surf's up in Venice! A Dutch guy wakeboards through Piazza San Marco thanks to the aqua alta or high water that swept through the city this week.

An incredibly effective ad campaign against xenophobia and racism is being sponsored by Italy's largest labor union.

The Vatican went green this week when they installed 2400 solar panels on top of the Papal Audience hall.

Cute new Vespa ads remind potential buyers that the motorbikes can zip through the narrowest of passageways and get you there more quickly.

The Italian coffee company, Lavazza, asked Annie Leibovitz to shoot their 2009 calendar which artfully re-imagines iconic Italian images (and it's shot in a studio)

Great ad for a travel iron. It's not just Paris, though. Rome & Tokyo are being flattened too!

The province of Rimini, on Italy's east coast, commissioned giant replicas of standard beach equipment to decorate the beach for vacationers this August.

Caesar goes online! A cool website at Macquarie University lets you follow the life of Julius Caesar by studying ancient coins that attest to his achievements. I love it when antiquity meets modernity in such a successful way.

Photographer Eugenio Recuenco shows us what happens when life imitates art. He used real models to recreate the Parthenon frieze. Lovely.

Badda Boom, Badda Bing -- Renaissance Style. A Sopranos actor turns Tony & Carmela into the Duke and Duchess of Montefeltro. And the painting sets a price record for Sopranos memorabilia.

Awesome sand sculptures on display this weekend in England.

Ben-Hur Redux! Officials in Rome are planning a chariot racing revival in the Circus Maximus.

Artist Troy Landwehr spent the 4th of July carving the signing of the Declaration of Independence out of a one-ton block of cheddar cheese in Times Square

Great photo of a replica of an ancient ship in the canal of Corinth. A crew with members from all 27 European Union member countries is re-enacting the mythical voyage of Jason & the Argonauts in this 50 oared vessel

Summer solstice at the Pantheon brings totally intense light effects.

Today is World Refugee Day and for the next three evenings, Rome's Colosseum is going to be a billboard for the cause.

Sten, Lex, and Lucamaleonte--stars of Rome's street art scene--take on Dante.

An artist named Tommaso has installed tape sculptures in Rome's Pigneto district. The effort seems to be an outgrowth of Mark Jenkin's famous Storker Project.

Today is World Environment Day. In honor of the occasion, tourists in Venice, Italy are being given empty water bottles and a map of Venice's water fountains. The new initiative aims to cut down on the use of plastic bottles.

Only in Rome would a wall from the 4th century BC run smack-dab into a modernist train station

Great Lamborghini ad campaign suggests that one can feel Italian anywhere

World Pillow Fight Day was in March, but the city of Rome celebrated yesterday with a massive pillow fight organized by the Committee for the Termination of National Apathy.

Can't get enough of the funky fragrances by Etat Libre et Orange - like Bellybutton, Bubblegum and Incense, and Delicious Closet Queen. But the one that really makes me happy is Jasmine & Cigarettes.