PERUGIA-- As a newcomer to the world of chocolate festivals, the experience was exciting and illuminating. Waking at dawn to catch my train put an initial downer on the day but once at our destination, I was happy I’d made the effort. Arriving at Perugia station, my companions and I noticed the “choco-train” immediately, named for obvious reasons, which takes excited passengers up a steep hill to the heart of the town. Unwilling to pay the 5 euro fee to get it, our group chose to walk -- harder than expected but effective at clearing  morning cobwebs. 

ROME - Scott Fitzgerald's novel may be a classic, but John Cabot University's theatrical take on it definitely wasn't traditional.

VATICAN CITY – Evidently bowing to conservative bishops' pressure, Pope Benedict XVI transferred Archbishop Joe Tobin from Rome to head the archdiocese of Indianapolis.

 Archbishop Tobin, 60, had been appointed Secretary of the Congregation for Religious as recently as August 2010 for what would normally be a five year term and had quickly become the leading voice for reconciliation with women religious.

ROME – "In those years Italy and Yugoslavia were the only Western countries to help with the resistance, through publishing clandestine material," said Said Ould-Khelifa, the director of Algeria’s pick for the Oscar Best Foreign Film nomination competition. After the screening of the film Zabana! at Rome’s Asiatica film festival, he went on to say that Italy’s Istituto Luce would have the distinction of being the film’s first European distributor.