If you were in the north Italian city of Bologna last weekend, you’d have been in for an unusual cultural treat. The resonant chimes of the church bells were temporarily replaced by the sharp trills of bicycle bells as scores of poetry lovers cycled through the streets and piazzas of the historic town centre, bringing poems written by poets from all over the world to…well, anyone who fancied listening.

Now in its second year, Poetandem invites everyone to get on their bikes and spread the poetic word to unsuspecting passers-by, as I discovered.

First broadcast on The Strand, BBC World Service, 26th July 2010.

British novelist, Somerset Maugham, once said, “death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.” Clearly, he’d never been to a funeral fair in Italy…

First broadcast on The State We’re In, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 25th July 2010

Shakespeare turned Romeo and Juliet into the most famous teenage couple in history. Their hometown, the Italian city of Verona, has long been a place of pilgrimage for lovesick tourists from all over the world. Now an American movie has pulled the city back into the romantic spotlight.

“Letters to Juliet” was inspired by a book of the same title written by sisters Lise and Ceil Friedman. It documents the history of a unique tradition in Verona which began back in the 1930s, when visitors to Juliet’s tomb started leaving letters addressed to her. The tomb’s guardian began to reply to the letters, signing himself off as “Juliet’s secretary” and the tradition has continued ever since.

Today people leave notes at Juliet’s house and even write to her by post. But she receives so much mail that she now has a whole group of secretaries who reply on her behalf. They are members of the Club di Giulietta or Juliet Club, which promotes the legend of the star-crossed lovers as well as answering the thousands of letters that pour into the city each year.

(first broadcast on Outlook, BBC World Service, 1st June, 2010)

Brazil. Home to the Brazil nut and it’s much lesser-known cousin, the castanha de Baru (or Baru nut). It’s tasty, high in protein, and low in fat. But for the slow movement, the Baru nut is more. It’s a symbol of traditional, local farming methods and products which have been protected and even promoted. Dany Mitzman gives us a taste of the Baru nut and what it means to Brazil.

First broadcast on Earth Beat, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 16th April, 2010

The film “Letters to Juliet” has just come out in America and is soon to be on general release in most countries throughout Europe. Starring Vanessa Redgrave and Amanda Seyfried, it’s a romantic comedy set in the north Italian city of Verona. Famous as the setting for Shakespeare’s best loved tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, the plot centres around the curious tradition of writing letters for advice to the tragic heroine and the even more curious Veronese tradition of replying to them.

I’ve been discovering the story behind the story.

(first broadcast on Arts on the Air, Deutsche Welle Radio, 19th May, 2010)

Italians take their pasta pretty seriously but nowhere more so than in the north Italian city of Bologna, the hometown – of course – of Bolognese sauce. Not only were tagliatelle and tortelllni invented here, but you’ll even find legal documents in the city’s Chamber of Commerce, dictating the exact width of tagliatelle and the correct recipe for tortellini.

So it’s no surprise that Bologna is the venue for an annual pasta-making competition, “il Matterello d’oro”: the Golden Rolling Pin. Held at a local television studio, participants from all over the region compete to roll out the best egg pasta dough in town.

(first broadcast on Inside Europe, Deutsche Welle Radio, 11th March, 2010)

Meg is a singer from the city of Naples in the south of Italy. The city is famous for being the birthplace of pizza and traditional romantic serenades but also for crime and, most recently, for the rubbish on the streets.

Meg used to be in a Neapolitan electronic hip hop-rap band called 99 Posse, but she went solo a few years ago. Her second solo album, “Psychodelice,” is being released in Italy this week.

I went to downtown Naples to chat with the singer-songwriter about how she makes her music, where she gets her inspiration and how being Neapolitan has influenced her sound.

(first broadcast on Cool, Deutsche Welle Radio, 4th May 2008)

The Royal National Theatre is one of the UK’s most important publicly funded theatre companies. Situated on London’s south bank, each year “The National” welcomes over 800,000 visitors through its doors. The building is home to three theatres – the Olivier, Lyttelton and Cottesloe – and presents an eclectic mix of new plays and classics from the world repertoire, with seven or eight productions in repertory at any one time.

With so much going on under one roof, the production teams are vast and the glue-like figure who holds everything together is the stage manager. I went to the National Theatre to meet one of their stage managers, David Marsland; and began by asking him what first attracted him to the job.

(first broadcast on Arts on the Air, Deutsche Welle Radio, 10th March 2010)

The Pre-Raphaelite movement was founded in 1848 by a group of artists and intellectuals who rejected what they considered “the frivolous art of the day” and embraced a return to greater “truth to nature”.

Until now, they’ve often been overshadowed by their contemporaries, the Impressionists, but recently they’ve been making a comeback: with exhibitions dedicated to the movement and its members in Stuttgart, Stockholm and London in 2009.

Now a major exhibition, The Pre-Raphaelites and the Italian Dream, has opened at MAR, the Museum of Art in the north Italian city of Ravenna. It will run until June before moving to Oxford’s Ashmolean museum in September. Appropriately a joint Anglo-Italian venture, it looks at the connection between the British Pre-Raphaelite movement and the Italian artists – as their name suggests, before Raphael - who inspired them.

I went to the exhibition to talk to two of its curators and began by asking why the Pre-Raphaelites are enjoying this new lease of popularity.

(first broadcast on Arts on the Air, Deutsche Welle Radio, 24th March 2010)

Twenty-five years ago, the people of the central Indian city of Bhopal woke up to the horrors of what’s since come to be known as the world’s worst industrial disaster. Around midnight on December 2, 1984, toxic chemicals leaked from Union Carbide’s pesticide plant in the city.

Some of the survivors have been on a bus tour around Europe to publicize the fact that, 25 years on, the after effects of the disaster continue to devastate the community. The tour was organized by the London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International together with partner organizations, the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal and The Bhopal Medical Appeal.

Dany Mitzman caught up with the touring survivors during their stopover in Rome.

(first broadcast on World in Progress, Deutsche Welle Radio, 3rd December, 2009)