Archive for the 'Italy' Category
Venetian painters at the Louvre Museum in Paris
October 4, 2009 5:56am
Kill two birds with one stone: Visit the Louvre Museum in the City of Light to see a big new exhibition about La Serenissima.
“Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice” (open through Jan. 4 in the Hall of Napoleon) examines three great 16th-century Italian artists who made their homes in the Lagoon City:
Titian learned from Venetian masters such as Bellini and Giorgione. Tintoretto, a Venice homeboy, was always at odds with Titian, his senior by about 30 years. The divine Veronese crossed hairs with the Inquisition over his placement of dogs and dwarfs in religious pictures such as “Feast in the House of Levi.”
Masterpieces on display include Titian’s lackadaisical nude “Danae” from the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, a Tintoretto self-portrait from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the striking “Temptation of St. Anthony” by Veronese from the Caen Museum of Beaux-Arts.
— Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times staff writer
Photo: “Venus with a Mirror” by Paolo Veronese. Credit: Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
When to fly? When to see Mona Lisa? Go by the book
October 3, 2009 6:05am
In real estate, it’s all about location, location, location. But in travel, it’s all about timing, timing, timing. Author Mark Di Vincenzo reminds us about that in a big way with his new book “Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon,” a compilation of travel, health and shopping tips, with the emphasis on when to strike.
For example: Which is the best day of the week to fly? Saturday. When is the best time to fly? (See title.) Which is the best day of the week to get a free hotel upgrade? Sunday or Monday.
The breezy little paperback offers hundreds of tips from the former investigative reporter, whose research is evident and sources carefully listed at the end. That keeps the attribution from cluttering up the info, which ranges from sublime to silly: When is the best time to see the Mona Lisa?
Do drink the water in Venice
September 28, 2009 3:43pm
We all know how expensive it is to visit Venice, partly because of the city logistics. The same complications drive up the price of trash collection, an operation conducted by sanitation workers with wheelbarrows, which costs about $335 million per ton compared with $84 million per ton on the Italian mainland.
You can’t do much about potato peels, but the city of Venice is trying to limit onerous plastic bottle trash by encouraging tourists and locals alike to drink water from municipal taps. Officials have given the local H2O a fancy moniker — Acqua Veritas — and have started to distribute glass containers with a logo to make the tap-water drinking experience more palatable.
Of course, habits are hard to change, even among those who know that Venetian tap water is top-notch. It’s mostly drawn from deep wells, carbon-filtered in treatment plants and laboratory-tested so that it meets the highest standards.
Under the Blue Flag: Clean beaches in 39 countries around the world
September 3, 2009 5:55am
Look for the blue flag before you take the plunge. That’s the sign that the beach or marina you’re visiting meets environmental standards established and monitored annually by the International Blue Flag Program, headquartered in Copenhagen.
The program, which originated in France in 1985, administers spot checks of candidate sites, ascertaining water quality and the absence of hazardous waste. A jury composed of environmentalists from groups such as the United Nations World Tourism Organization and the European Union for Coastal Conservation then makes the final selections.
The U.S. doesn’t participate in the program, but lots of other places do. This year more than 3,300 beaches and marinas in 39 countries have won blue flags, including Gdansk Marina in Poland, Bikini Beach in Cape Town, South Africa, and Sperlonga in Italy. A complete list is available at www.blueflag.org.
—Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times staff writer
Photo: Sperlonga, an Italian Blue Flag beach near Rome. Credit: Susan Spano/Los Angeles Times
Travel the world with bookstores in London, Paris, Rome
September 2, 2009 5:56am
For those who could fritter away hours in a good travel bookstore, there are compelling options in European capitals, starting with Stanfords in Britain.
The London flagship, which claims to have the world’s largest array of travel books and maps, may be the oldest specialty travel shop. Founded in 1853, it was mentioned in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tale “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”
Since 1901, Stanfords has made its home among the theaters of Covent Garden, where along with books and maps, you can buy flags of the world’s nations (not to mention the skull and crossbones for aspiring pirates). Read the rest of this entry »
Julia Roberts turns heads in Rome
August 30, 2009 12:21pm
It’s steaming hot in Rome, but regardless, everyone’s on the lookout for Julia Roberts. The Hollywood diva is in the Eternal City this week with director Ryan Murphy to shoot the film version of Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling “Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia.”
Guess which part of the title the heroine pursues in Rome.
You got it, the part that has to do with pistachio gelato and spaghetti alla carbonara.
Roberts has been spotted in sunglasses and a floppy hat near the posh Hotel Raphael on the Largo Febo, at Da Pancrazio restaurant on Piazza del Biscione and haggling for choice cuts at a butcher shop on Via dei Cappellari near the Campo de’ Fiori.
She costars with Javier Bardem and Billy Crudup in the story of a woman’s effort to find herself by traveling the world. The movie is scheduled for release in 2011.
Next stop for the film crew: India, then Bali. Read the rest of this entry »
Rome: Visit museums at night in another city that never sleeps
August 28, 2009 4:18pm
It’s not too late to join the nocturnal revelry at Castel Sant’Angelo on the banks of the Tiber River in Rome. Every night through Sunday, starting at 8:45 p.m. to 1:45 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, the ancient monument, built as a mausoleum for Emperor Hadrian around 140 A.D., opens to visitors with concerts, cabarets, children’s entertainment and refreshments on the terrace.
As a special treat, visitors can tour Il Passetto, the secret passage between the Vatican and Castel Sant’Angelo, used by fleeing popes and recently featured in the movie “Angels & Demons.”
Not only that, but the Museum of the Imperial Forums, also known as Trajan’s Markets Museum, on via IV Novembre is staying open from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through Sept. 12 for floodlighted tours, and the Vatican Museums have announced a special late opening every Friday in September and October (from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.; last entrance 9:30 p.m.). Among the papal treasures open for viewing there are the Map Gallery, Raphael Stanze and Sistine Chapel.
Just a penny for a stay near Venice?
August 16, 2009 11:03am
Whoops! Last week, a four-star hotel near Venice, Italy, accidentally posted a shockingly reduced rate for future room stays, and travelers quick to the punch swooped in to take advantage.
Over a couple of hours on Sunday, Aug. 9, word spread on the Web that the Crowne Plaza Venice East-Quarto d’Altino had rooms going for one Euro cent. This wasn’t an intentional offer. The deal on the Intercontinental Hotels Group website was actually supposed to be for half off of a two-night stay.
Not a hacking job, the posted penny rate, for stays from October through 2010, was due to “human error” at the Hotels Group offices, reported the Associated Press.
Though some forum members of FlyerTalk speculated that their reservations would be invalidated, the hotel group has reportedly committed to honor all of the bookings. Read the rest of this entry »
Six nights in Italian villa, with car and flights, for $1,147
August 14, 2009 9:14am
Escape to Italy’s scenic Tuscany region, sleep in a Renaissance villa for six nights and tool around the countryside in your own car by day for as little as $1,147 per person. Did I mention the price includes roundtrip airfare from Los Angeles?
OK, so you’ll need to go in winter to get these prices, but Tuscany can still be pleasant then, with average daytime highs in the high 40s or low 50s, and rolling green hills. And for the best deal, you’ll need to sleep four to a room. Very social, no? Take the family. (Or take fewer people and pay more per person.)
Deal: The “Tuscan Villa Vacation” gives you six nights at the restored Villa Belvedere Campoli, which dates to the 16th century, in the village of Mercatale Val di Pesa. The villa gets generally good user reviews on TripAdvisor.com. You also get a manual-shift car (or for $100 more, an automatic) for the week, including taxes and collision damage waiver, and round-trip economy airfare between Los Angeles and Florence, Italy. Tips and meals are extra.
Mexico: See monarch butterflies in their wintering grounds
August 13, 2009 9:52am
Every year, millions of monarch butterflies journey roughly 2,500 miles from Canada and the northern U.S. to central Mexico highlands, where they spend the winter around local flowers, mating and feeding.
Visiting the butterflies en masse in their wintering grounds is said to be a remarkable experience. You may get a chance to see so many butterflies at once, in fact, that “you can actually hear the beating of millions of tiny wings,” according to a trip announcement by nature-expedition operator Natural Habitat Adventures.
The travel company’s six-day “Kingdom of the Monarchs Adventure,” offered 14 times between January and March 2010, is one way to visit the butterflies in an environmentally sensitive manner while contributing to their conservation. And a recent promotion by the operator offers extra incentive to book for a couple of the tour dates.
Deal: The “2010 Economic Climate Change Stimulus Plan” offers a one-time $500 discount per person, for monarch-butterfly trips departing Jan. 10 or Jan. 18, 2010. Read the rest of this entry »
