Ciao! Greeting from Italy!

This is a card from Turin(杜林), a city lying in northern Italy. Its real name is Torino in Italian. This city hosted the winter Olympic games in 2006.

Italy is such a culturally rich country that we can generally regard it as the cradle of human European culture. Since Turin is an important center of northern Italy, it is also rich in cultural heritage. For example, the picture on this postcard shows the medieval(中世紀的) village in Valentino Park(瓦倫蒂諾公園), located along the west bank of Po river(波河).

I.P.Z.S means 義大利政府印刷局, which is situated in Roma, produces coins and stamps.
(Banknotes are printed by the central bank.)

It is interesting that ''Ciao'' means both informal ''hello'' and ''goodbye'' in Italian. Besides, it seems that it is common to hear a heavy accent in different region of a country in Europe. A word can sound quite different when spoken by people living in the north and south of the same country respectively. We can even find a video teaching you how to mark off people from northern and southern Italy by their pronunciation!

 And here provides you another video about Italian hand gestures.