Buon Viaggio

“Washington is where my daughter Angélique was born and where my son Federico spent four unforgettable years of his early childhood,” First Secretary Franco Impalà, Head of the Cultural Section, told Hollywood on the Potomac at an intimate farewell party at Firenze House, residence of The Ambassador of Italy and Mrs. Armando Varricchio, for he and his wife Ingrid Bouillé. “Ingrid and I will leave here an important part of our lives.”

Ambassador Varricchio has only been Ambassador here for five months, but had this to say about his colleague: “In these months, I had really the chance to come to know a very distinguished and fine colleague. Franco has been engaged in cultural diplomacy, which for me is the most important component of diplomacy. We live in challenging times; we are confronted with many threats; the geo-political scenario is offering every single way of presenting us with new challenges. But following the Italian year of culture – a full year of activities, events, not just here in Washington, but throughout this great country – Franco did so with passion, with dedication and I have to say that in the five months I have spent here, whenever I had a possibility to talk with colleagues not just in Washington but in the country, I always received praise and admiration for [what we did] and I think that Franco played a really great role in this.”