Italy
Leonardo da Vinci’s Seven Principles
August 10, 2010 by Chander Chawla
1. An insatiably curious approach to life
2. A commitment to test knowledge through experience
3. The refinement of the senses to clarify experience
4. A willingness to embrace uncertainty
5. Balancing science and art, logic and imagination to achieve whole-brain thinking
6. The cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness, and poise
7. A recognition of the interconnectedness of all things
However, I am still not a master of any subject:-) What life principles do you live by?
Overnight Train to Rome: BYOF and Watch Your Back
August 3, 2010 by David Conti
Sleeper Car on Artesia: Lock Your Door
$175 for Italian chicken fingers: Non Grazie !
Artesia Train Ride Featured Three Hour Delays, Fraud, and Scam Artists
Last summer, we booked a family vacation to London, Paris, and Rome via Air France Holidays. Although it was a great learning and cultural experience for our kids, we experienced several misfortunes; one included getting pick pocketed at the Notre Dame Paris subway station by professional thieves.
But our troubles were only beginning.
After Paris, it was on to Rome on the overnight train. We were impressed with the website for Artesia, which happens to be a joint venture between Italian and French train companies. The notion of travelling through Provence and all the way to Rome seemed romantic and an enjoyable experience for the whole family.
Boy, were we wrong. Actually, the website experience was the best part of the Artesia encounter. The lounge at the Bercy Train Station in Paris was a joke. We checked out of our three star Paris hotel at 12 Noon, dragged all the luggage to Bercy only to find out that the Artesia lounge would not be…
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Sicily Travel Advice: Always Hustle
July 24, 2010 by Marcello Arrambide
The Ferry taking us to Malta
I was living in Sicily at the time going to school in Siracusa. I already saw one of the largest Greek theaters in the world and took a trip around the city. As long as you don’t need a Visa to enter Italy you are able to stay for 3 months without getting one. I was living there for way more than a year and needed to get a “permesso di soggiorno (permission to stay for more than 3 months). While Italy is a modern western country not everything runs like it should. How many governments actually run efficiently I’m thinking (other than Germany)? But I digress.
I went to the government office to apply for the permesso di soggiorno and like true Italian chaos everyone and everything was well, everywhere. People were yelling and making the classic Italian hand gesture. I soon realized I wasn’t getting anything done. I met some new friends and decided to leave the office and not bother with it. I simply will leave the country every 3 months to reset my time in the country. My best option was to take…
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Star Clipper Mediterranean Cruise
July 20, 2010 by Geoff Edwards
This is a rough diary of a trip on Star Clipper, 4 masts, 21 sails, 360 feet long with a crew of 70, pampering 170 passengers. The crew was a jumble of 24 nationalities.
We started in Cannes, France, which to tell the truth looks a lot more glamorous in the paparazzi photos during the film festival. Once the stars blink out, it’s just a bunch of rich tourists, eager retail employees, and wide-eyed yacht crews.
Looking for dinner the first night, I wondered the streets near the waterfront and found three or four restaurants all offering the same menu; mussels, fish or meat dishes, and pizza. All was expensive if you were not Euro enhanced.
Thoughts about Cannes:
It must be quite dismaying to spend 50 million on a yacht, come to Cannes, and find you are the cheapest boat on the block. I saw some 70 yachts of all description, and all in a tidy row, and all BIG. Some even had helicopters perched on the top deck. By the way, isn’t yacht a funny looking word?
French truck drivers cannot drive well without a cigarette in their mouths.
French window manikins are far more attractive than ours.…
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Mount Etna: Taormina Sicily
July 17, 2010 by Marcello Arrambide
Greek Theater at Taormina Sicily
This is one of the best views for Mount Etna, as you drive take some Sicily travel advice and avoid killer sheep. Taormina is a very touristic town about 45 minutes to an hour away from Catania (major international airport in Catania Sicily). The city is also about half hour away from where they filmed one of the infamous movies about la mafia nostra: The Godfather. The city is roughly half hour NE of Taormina called Forza d’Agro. Many of the cafe’s still have pictures of the infamous mafia nostra film that epitomized the phrase “capo di capi” (boss of all bosses in Italian). One of the many interesting things to do in Sicily.
The Jewish Ghetto
July 17, 2010 by Carla Ciccone
The Jewish Ghetto of Rome is an area that I love. It’s well preserved, beautiful, tranquil and not overrun with tourists. Like nearly everywhere else in Rome, the Ghetto is full of its own rich history and charm.
Very briefly, the history is: Jewish people lived freely and finely in Rome until 1555 when a mean Pope (Paul IV) segregated them into their own walled quarter of the city and limited their personal freedoms.
They had to deal with awful rules, including a strict curfew and living in cramped conditions packed behind a wall, for three centuries.
The walls of the ghetto were torn down in 1848 and 20 years later, the Jewish people were given back their full rights as citizens.
After Italy unified in 1870, the government offered the Jews a nice piece of land on which to build a new synagogue. No thanks, they said.
Instead, they chose to rebuild it in the ghetto, where they had lived for centuries. Not rewriting history, but reclaiming it.
The beautiful new synagogue, built in 1904 is called the Synagogue of Emancipation.
Today, the Jewish Ghetto is a charming area full of shops, cafés and restaurants. It’s also the best…
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An Enchanted Tuscan Hideaway
July 17, 2010 by Carla Ciccone
Tuscany – or Toscana – is one of Italy’s most loved, recognized and romanticized regions. Ever since the film Under the Tuscan Sun gave audiences a taste of the Tuscan lifestyle, people hear Tuscany and think: warmth, beauty, tranquility.
The thing about Tuscany, like most of Italy, is that it lives up to the hype. As you drive through her beautiful landscape, you’re greeted by fields of sunflowers, their petals following the path of the afternoon sun, vineyards sprawling over the rolling hills, and tall cypress trees swaying in the soft breeze.
Villas dot the landscape perfectly, sitting nestled in between hills, beside grape vines, and on the tops of peaks, all charming you with their unique, old beauty. History is rich in these hills.
I recently had the pleasure of travelling to the Tuscan province of Arezzo, where I worked as an English teacher at a summer camp.
I wasn’t expecting much in terms of accommodations, since the word “camp” usually implies rustic comfort, if such a thing exists. But, oh, was I wrong.
I should have known that in Italy, summer camp is done a bit differently – as in hotel-style.
We stayed at Villa Schiatti, a hotel in…
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Attack of Killer Sheep
July 16, 2010 by Marcello Arrambide
This was my first move overseas to the gorgeous Island of Sicily (I really was just interested in the Pizza at first). Being the homeland of the mafia there is always an interesting twist at every corner (more stories about the run-ins with the Sicily mafia coming soon). Many want you to believe that Sicily mafia, mafia nostra, mafia sicily, capo di capi (whatever you want to call it) doesn’t exist anymore. The fact is the mafia nostra does exist and they enjoy running Sicily.
One of the fascinating things about Sicily is the fact that it’s considered a strategic area due to its location. The island has been controlled and conquered by almost every culture: Arabs, Greeks, Normans, Byzantines, Spanish, French, and even Romans (I didn’t list to many did I?). This turns the Island into a tourist’s PARADISE. The majority of people don’t even make it to southern Italy because of the more popular destinations in the north (that may be why the Sicilians and Northern Italians detest each other). There are a plethora of Sicily attractions including Greek temples, Roman villas and even Arab churches (I will keep the list short this time).…
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Photo of the Week – World Cup Fever
July 8, 2010 by Sherry Ott
Balancing Act
I don’t know how it happened, but I’ve been transformed into a football fan. Yes, that’s right, I said football, not soccer; just to prove how authentic the transformation is. With the World Cup championship coming up this weekend, I felt like I better give this new love of mine visibility on my Photo of the Week. One of the constants as I travel and live around the world was the presence of the beloved game of football. From Thailand to Turkey to Italy to Kenya – it is the world’s sport.
I snapped this shot in a park in Rome. Teenage boys were walking on one of the many paths and this one decided to show off some skills. Who knows – maybe he’ll play in the World Cup one day…
To see more photography from Rome, visit my Global Photography website where you can view and purchase photography from around the world.
To see more travel photography check out
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Newspass: Why Google’s Paywall Plans May Just Work
July 1, 2010 by Matthew Buckland
Google has been quietly testing a new paywall system for publishers it is calling “Newspass”. According to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Google has been piloting the service with publishers in Italy. The search giant will apparently launch an integrated payment system, allowing users to buy news content with just one click. Newspass would allow publishers to use a single infrastructure for Web, mobile and tablet computers to monetise their content.
Importantly, La Repubblica reports that consumers will have a single log-in across a multitude of news sites that would be flexible enough to accommodate various kinds of payments, including long-term subscriptions and one-time micropayments. It would be a one-click payment for access, not too dissimilar from Google Checkout.
Paywalling systems on news sites have been controversial for a better part of a decade. There is justified scepticism about whether they work or not. A handful of publications around the world, largely in the specialist finance field, have got it more-or-less right, but for the most part, paywalls have not been a success.
Google’s new effort is an acute case of Déjà vu. In the early 2000s many online publishers tried to paywall their content, but were forced to retreat…
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