The colors of the Italian flag–green, white, and red–have special meaning. Green represents hope, white represents faith, and red signals charity.
There are only 21 letters in the standard Italian alphabet. The Italian alphabet doesn’t have the letters J, K, W, X or Y.
Don’t be surprised if your hotel in Italy doesn’t have a 17th floor. Italians believe that this number is unlucky because when the Roman numeral for 17 (XVII) is rearranged is looks like VIXI, which means “I have lived,” a symbol that’s associated with death.
Almost four-fifths of Italy is either mountainous or hilly; and Italy has more earthquakes than any other European country.
The French Army was the first to use camouflage in 1915 (World War I). The word camouflage came from the French verb ‘to make up for the stage’. Guns and vehicles were painted by artists called camofleurs.
Europe’s highest mountain is in the French Alps. Mont Blanc, at 4,810m, takes an arduous 10 to 12 hours to climb to the summit. Alternatively, you can take a leisurely 20-minute trip up on Europe’s highest cable car on the nearby Aiguille du Midi to get a brilliant view of Mont Blanc.
The world’s greatest cycle race, the Tour de France, has been around for more than 100 years. With the first event held on 1 July 1903. Every July, cyclists race some 3,200km (2,000 miles) primarily around France in a series of stages over 23 days, with the fastest cyclist at each stage wearing the famous yellow jersey.
Not all Spaniards are native speakers of (Castilian) Spanish. There are four official languages in Spain (Castilian, Catalan, Basque and Galician), three unofficial regional languages (Asturian, Aragonese, and Aranese), and several more dialects.
Spain is renowned for its lively festivals, including San Fermín (“running of the bulls”) in Pamplona and Tomatina (“tomato battle”) in Buñol. More than 150,000 tomatoes are usually thrown at La Tomatina.
The Madrid subway is the second largest underground system in Europe and the sixth largest system in the world.
The name Spain diverged from the word Ispania, which means the land of rabbits.