Archive for April, 2008
The Yellow Hostel in Rome
When the first things you see of Italy hostels or hotels are things that are new, things that have just recently opened or places they’ve just recently expanded, your first impression is that business must be good. And that’s just the impression one gets when one approaches Yellow Hostel in Rome - they’ve recently opened up a bar at street level that is beautifully decorated in an art nouveau style with lots of dark hardwood, cool chandeliers, cheap food and drinks (plus special discounts for hostel guests), and a flat panel satellite TV in the back. It’s enough to make you wonder if you could just bring your pillow to the bar and never leave.
But there’s more.
I got my tour of Yellow Hostel (often called “The Yellow”) from its manager, Sabrina, and her adorable pug Pumba. From the glorious entry of the Yellow Bar, she led me down a narrow staircase near the door to the hang-out space below. It would be cave-like, for the low ceilings, brick walls, and arched nooks - except that all the walls and ceilings are painted bright white, so the space feels inviting rather than claustrophobic. There are cushions on the benches, a foosball table, books tucked onto shelves and a stereo in the corner. It’s the perfect place to chill at any time of day, and the bar (with its cheap eats) is only a few steps up the stairs.
>>Check out my other Rome hostels reviews, too!
Date: April 30th, 2008 |
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Luini’s Famous Panzerotto in Milan: A Quick, Cheap & Amazing Lunch
This article was written and submitted for publication on the Italy Logue by Chris Bright.
When visiting the historic center of Milan, grabbing a quick lunch can be a challenge since the options are limited to fast-food chain restaurants [editor's note: which you should stay away from!] or more pricey sit-down places. However, the perfect antidote for these uninspiring choices is to make your way to Panificio Luini near Milan’s Duomo. Join the throngs of fashionable Milanesi office workers - as well as in-the-know tourists - who line-up by the dozens for Luini’s famous panzerotto.
A panzerotto is a unique and fulfilling treat - it is the golden lovechild that would result from the loving union of an old-fashioned raised doughnut and a traditional Neapolitan pizza. The outside is comprised of light, springy yeast dough with a pleasant but not overwhelming sweet flavor. On the inside, folded over like a little calzone or empanada, is tomato sauce, mozzarella and, if desired, one or two savory ingredients. Finally, the magic happens when the whole package is deep-fried and served hot. The combination of sweet and savory flavors and chewy and creamy textures are each recognizable and familiar, but it’s the first bite that is truly the revelation.
Date: April 28th, 2008 |
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Fly Free With (Some) Perillo Tours This Summer
If the high cost of airline travel has got you down, not to mention the high cost of summertime travel to Italy, then this press release a friend sent me might be music to your ears:
“Perillo Tours Offers FREE AIRFARE to Italy via EuroFly Airlines”
Just the title of the press release might make your mouth water (it did mine), but before you get too excited here are the facts: In order to take advantage of the (admittedly generous) free airfare offer, you have to fly from New York’s JFK into Rome, Bologna or Palermo. You have to fly on EuroFly airlines. The flight must be booked by June 1, 2008. And - here’s perhaps the most critical piece - the flight must be booked along with one of three of Perillo Tours’ specific trips in Italy.
Date: April 26th, 2008 |
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Canada Embassy and Consulates in Italy
Here is the contact information for the Canadian Embassy and Consulates in Italy. While you hope to never need their services while you are traveling, it’s good to know they’re there if you do!
Canada Embassy in Roma
Via Salaria 243, 00199 Rome (Political, Academic, Cultural and Trade Sections)
Via Zara 30, 00198 Rome (Visa and Consular Sections)
tel: (+39) 06 85 25 41
fax: (+39) 06 85 25 43 01
website: http://www.international.gc.ca/canada-europa/italy/menu-en.asp
email address: rome@international.gc.ca
Opening hours: Monday-Friday, 09:00-17:00 (visa section is open Monday-Thursday 08:30-11:30 only, consular section is open Monday-Friday 08:30-12:00 and 14:00-16:00 only)
Canada Honorary Consul in Naples
29 Via Carducci
80121 Naples
tel: (+39) 081 401338
fax: …
Date: April 25th, 2008 |
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Hotel Dalla Mora: Quiet Budget Hotel in Venice
Some people visiting Venice want to stay no more than a few feet from Piazza San Marco, and who can blame them? Until my last trip to Venice, I put myself firmly in this category. I love the proximity to the stunning Basilica di San Marco, and until this last trip I accepted the crush of other tourists in the area as the price of being so near to the church. But for my future visits to Venice, and for anyone else who prefers a bit of solitude around their hotel after swimming upstream against a proverbial sea of humanity all day, there are plenty of discount hotels in Venice on quiet side streets and little-used canals throughout the city’s less-visited districts. I found one of those hotels during this last trip to Venice, and even though it’s in a peaceful area it’s only a few minutes’ walk from the train and bus stations.
The entrance for Hotel Dalla Mora is at the end of a tiny passage - the “street” just sort of dead-ends at a quiet canal near the edge of the Santa Croce district. This one-star hotel offers the distinct perk of having a terrace overlooking its quiet little canal, and some of the rooms overlook the canal as well. There are only 14 rooms in the entire hotel - six in the main building (where reception, the breakfast room and the terrace are), and eight more in a building just in front of the main entrance. All the rooms in the main building have en suite private bathrooms, while some of the rooms in the other building make use of shared bathrooms. All the rooms are blissfully television- and telephone-free, so you can really relax during your vacation!
Date: April 23rd, 2008 |
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Tips for Flying to Italy: Open-Jaw Tickets & Flying into the Venice Airport
When most people plan trips to Italy, they only search for “airfare to Rome” or “airfare to Milan” and pick the cheapest options from those - sometimes without regard to what their actual itinerary might be. How many people fly in and out of Milan every year, but spend absolutely no time in the city? I mean, why bother flying into a city you’re not interested in visiting?
At any rate, my own personal preferences for flying to Italy include two things many travelers may not consider - flying into one city and out of another, and flying into Venice’s airport if at all possible. Let’s go over these one by one.
Date: April 29th, 2008 |
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Italian News Snippets: 04.27.08
Some Italian news for your Sunday reading pleasure:
I know I should eat less red meat, but when in Florence I can’t resist La Bistecca. And other fans will be happy to know the real thing (the “Fiorentina”) is on its way back to restaurant plates very soon.
If you’re near Rimini, Jessica in Rome gives a little tour of a place that’ll allow you to see the entire country of Italy in one quick stop.
When I got married in 2003, the average cost of a wedding in the US was $25,000. So we eloped. Which is …
Date: April 27th, 2008 |
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“Italy Basix” Tour from BootsnAll World Adventures
The fine folks at BootsnAll (who host this website) are into lots of travel-related things, including an entire division of the company that puts together package tours to destinations all over the world - it’s called BootsnAll World Adventures. Most of these trips are geared toward adventure travelers who may have once been hardcore backpackers but who have gotten to the point where they’d like someone else to take care of the details now, thank you very much. Because of this focus, BootsnAll World Adventures (BWA for short) doesn’t tend to focus on places like Italy. Their bread and butter is more in places like Africa, Asia and South America.
To their credit, however, they’re trying to branch out and include places like Italy - even though they’re definitely on the beaten path - because, let’s face it, there’s only one Rome on earth, and even most hardcore backpackers will eventually want to see the Colosseum! There’s an Italy tour available through BWA right now, with departure dates stretching from now through November, which I thought I’d take a moment to highlight.
Called “Italy Basix,” this tour lasts 14 days and includes Venice, Lake Garda, the Cinque Terre, Florence, Naples and Rome - in that order - and starts at $1,605 per person (not including airfare). This isn’t the kind of trip where you get booked into 3- or 4-star hotels and shuttled from attraction to attraction in a big air-conditioned bus, though. Instead, the accommodation is in really basic hotels or hostels, some of which aren’t private rooms and don’t have private en suite bathrooms, and transportation is on local trains and buses. Essentially, what you are paying for (aside from the actual costs of things like the hotels and trains) with this tour is the luxury of someone else planning everything for you.
Date: April 25th, 2008 |
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Booking an Italy Vacation Rental Online
If you’ve ever tried to find a vacation rental in Italy just by typing “vacation rental in Italy” in a search engine, you’ll know what I mean when I say there’s almost too much choice. There are pages and pages of results for different companies that offer Italy vacation rentals - or at least they say they do. But how many of them actually have unique listings? And which ones offer rental properties in different price ranges? Do some feature only the ultra-expensive luxury villas while others also have cheaper apartment rentals? In short, how do you sort through the long list of results to find the sites that you should really be looking at?
Well, while there’s no really quick and easy way to sort through every search result, there are a few websites that do rise above the fray in terms of the Italy vacation rentals they offer. I’ve collected a few of the better vacation rental websites here so that you can check them out for yourself and see which ones you like best. This way, the next time you’re hunting for a vacation rental in Italy you don’t have to search high and low - you can go directly to the site you already know you like.
Date: April 24th, 2008 |
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12 Celebrities With Homes in Italy
Being an international celebrity would probably be annoying on some levels, but if it meant I could buy houses anywhere I wanted that wouldn’t be so bad. Some famous folks have taken advantage of their wealth and bought houses in Italy (who can blame them?), but tracking them down is, I’ve found, a bit of a challenge. Now, I’m not saying I’m trying to become a stalker, or that I’m encouraging you to become stalkers, I’m just trying to compile a list of people who own property in Italy. This is what I’ve got so far, and I’m hoping y’all can help me add to this list of celebrities with homes in Italy!
I should mention that this list doesn’t include Italian celebrities, because while they are famous in Italy they could probably walk right up to you and slap you in the face and you wouldn’t recognize them. So while there are certainly more celebrities with homes in Italy than are on this list, I’m trying to restrict the list to international celebrities. So, on with the list of the famous people with homes in Italy:
George Clooney
Anyone who pays attention to this kind of thing (and lots of people who don’t) knows that George Clooney has a house on Lake Como in Italy. He’s owned Villa Oleandra since 2002, and he actually resides there part of each year. Not long ago he thought about leaving because the town of Bellagio was contemplating putting in extra parking lots to sort of encourage people to come gawk at where Clooney lives… They put a stop to that talk when he threatened to just leave instead. Kudos to George, he likes Bellagio just as it is. And by the way, in addition to any potential Clooney-sightings you might have while on Lake Como, there has been a near-constant parade in town of George’s famous friends as well - including the entire cast of “Ocean’s Twelve” when they were on filming breaks.
Brad Pitt
While most of what I found about Brad Pitt and Italy involved the rumors that he and Angelina Jolie were going to use pal George Clooney’s Lake Como villa as the site for their nuptials, there was also a reference or two to Pitt’s having bought his own villa in a town not far from Clooney’s place. If your heart palpitates like mine does at the thought of seeing Clooney on Lake Como, then have a defibrillator handy on the off-chance that you see him at the same time as you see Brad Pitt. That image alone makes me really hope it’s true that Pitt’s got a place on the lake. Can anyone confirm or deny this one?
Sting
Among several other dwellings owned by the former Police frontman is Il Palagio in Tuscany. And while you may never be invited to share a meal with Sting and his family, you can pour his organic olive oil on your own ribollita and call it good. From the looks of the Il Palagio website, I can’t imagine that Sting still lives there, but I wouldn’t worry about him being homeless anytime soon. Incidentally, in researching this article I also found one article saying Sting has a house on Lake Como as well. I guess the man likes Italy.
Date: April 21st, 2008 |
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