Program 405: What Italians Are Talking About; Visiting England's Estate Houses

Get insider tips for which of Britain's many tourable historic mansions and stately homes are the most rewarding to visit, and which of those offer the chance to meet the lord or lady of the manor. Plus, guides from Rome and Sicily give us a local's take on the Italian hot-topic issues their neighbors are discussing at the corner café: the red tape, high unemployment, and influx of refugees that are all straining the government's ability to manage.

• Tommaso Pante, tour guide based in Sicily
• Nina Bernardo, tour guide based in Rome
• Gillian Chadwick, tour guide based near London
• Roy Nicholls, tour guide based in Dorset, England

• Nina Bernardo suggests the 2013 film "La Grande Belleza" as a good way to understand the Italian way of seeing the world.
• Tommaso Pante's website.
• Tour guide interviews with Tommaso Pante, Nina Bernardo, Gillian Chadwick, and Roy Nicholls. 
• Many of England's stately homes and estates are open for visitors, including Snowshill Manor House in the Cotswolds, and are managed by the National Trust.
• Woburn Abbey is said to be where the tradition of afternoon tea originated.
• Chatsworth House, in Derbyshire, includes an extensive events calendar of activites held on the property. 
• Blenheim Palace, where Winston Churchill was born, near Oxford, includes more than 2000 acres of parkland and formal gardens planted by Capability Brown. 
• Highgrove is where Prince Charles lives, and provides garden tours by reservation.
• Sissinghurst, in Kent, is home to Vita Sackville-West's famous garden.
• Longleat House in Wiltshire includes a Mississippi River-style steamboat as one of its attractions.  It also has an extensive safari park where exotic animals are housed. 

Three day plane delay. 

Honeymoon in Halifax.

Could have just driven.

     -- Sarah Houston Toll, Dyersburg, Tennessee

Closed the pub last night.

Husband hikes Wicklow alone.

I sleep in the car.

     -- Kim Everding, Saint Louis, Missouri

Hertz never found out

driving through the Pyrenees

someone vomited.

            -- Nora Sturges, Baltimore, Maryland