Italian Ventures

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's decision to cancel a long-awaited holiday trip to Italy and stay home appears to have been a deft political move.
Schröder was right to call off the family trip after Italy's junior minister for tourism, Stefano Stefani, refused to apologize for describing Germans as loud “supernationalist blondes“ who “invade Italy's beaches“ every summer and make life miserable for the locals.
It never took much for Germans and Italians to get mad at each other - their characters are simply too far apart. While the Germans lack the Italian lightness of being, the Italians do not share the
· Germans' seriousness of purpose [FAZ ]