ahotelinitaly.com blog » Photographs

Lucca by night, Christmas 2010

Matteo — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 10:26:57 +0000

Piazza Napoleone in Lucca may not have its trees lit up this year (it does have ice-skating though), but the nearby Theatre (Teatro del Giglio) is adorned with maestro Puccini, and each of the town’s gates has a light show decoration, the one above lending the medieval walls a distinctly Florentine touch.

Click here to book a hotel in Lucca

Merchants in Venice – heavy handed advertising.

Matteo — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:24:56 +0000

You’ve held the picture, the framing, in your mind’s eye for a long time. You’re finally there, at last you’re visiting in the flesh, not online or on your coffee table … you turn the corner, your first real glimpse of Venice’s Palazzo Ducale, the Doge’s Palace … ah … scaffolding … ah well … it’s an old building … but that’s not the point, or at least it wasn’t this summer … the point was the, well, less-than-subtle advertising that shrouded large swathes of the frontage.
Yes it was corporate-global-brand-aspirational-lifestlye stuff, but it wasn’t all from fizzy America or techtoy Japan – there was home grown luxury wrapping to boot. And big names in the world of art have complained. This from the ‘Venice in Peril’ group (article link):

“We appeal to the Italian government to change the legislation that permits huge advertisements on the scaffolding of public buildings. Only ten years ago, Venice was a city without large advertisements. Today, they are proliferating. They hit you in the eye and ruin your experience of one of the most beautiful creations of humankind. Their scale dwarfs the fine detail and proportions of the buildings, and now that they are also illuminated, you cannot escape them even by night, when they are the hardest, brightest lights in town by far.

We ask you to imagine the disappointment that the 17.5m visitors to Venice this year will feel. They come to this iconic city with an image of it in their mind’s eye and instead they see its famous views grotesquely defaced.

To those who say that the money the advertisements bring is necessary to restore those buildings, we remind you that after the great flood of 1966, when Venice was in a much worse state and Italy a much less rich country, no one contemplated using this method to raise funds.

Other ways of financing restoration must be found, otherwise Venice is doomed to be covered in advertisements for the rest of its life because its buildings will always be undergoing work due to their great age and the environmental fragility of the city.

Finally, we remind you that Venice is a Unesco World Heritage Site and that a preceding government of Italy undertook to protect its essential nature in perpetuity when it accepted this nomination.”

Hotels in Venice, Italy
Tickets for visitng the Palazzo Ducale

Rome – Colosseum to get a facelift

Matteo — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:42:50 +0000

Starting late 2010, costing around 20 million Euro and involving some 13,000 square metres of external stonework, Rome’s most famous archaeological landmark is due for a facelift and some deep cleansing. Work is expected to take around a year.

Once finished it will be quite literally put back in the spotlight with a brand-new illumination scheme. The barriers that block most of the lower archways are also going to be replaced with something more sympathetic.

Rumours that the work is to be overseen by those evidently-very-good-at-tarting-up-old-structures responsible for Silvio’s (alleged, sic) facelifts are likely not true.

Link to story.

Rome hotels

Visit Volterra – views ‘n vampires

Matteo — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:07:36 +0000

Do go and visit Volterra, even if you’ve never heard of, or read anything by, Stephenie Meyer. Certainly her New Moon book (part of the teentastic Twilight series) has delivered countless coachloads of tourists to Volterra – her Volturi, old-skool vampires, reside in caves under the town – but the sweeter-than-virgin’s-blood irony is that none of the film ended up being shot there – Montepulciano was cheaper, so the story goes. Meh, Tuscan hilltop towns – seen one, seen ‘em all.

Except no – Volterra is special. It looks great as you approach it, it looks great as you explore it, and it looks great as you look out across the surrounding countryside. Dating back to Etruscan times (there is a very good Etruscan museum, as well as a good art gallery – pinacoteca), it is today a lot smaller than it once was, large sections having sheared off and fallen down the cliffs on which the town perches. What is left is lovely though, and the cental Piazza is a fine spot for a coffee whilst planning your route (on foot) around the narrow streets and fine buildings of Volterra.

Below are a couple of photo-galleries, and do be sure to look at our range of Volterra hotels.

Volterra hotels

About Castrovillari, Cosenza province, Calabria region

John — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:05:54 +0000

A town of 22,000 people in Calabria, Castrovillari sits 362 metres above sea level, and is a terrific base for visitors to the Pollino national park, one of the largest in Europe. The name is probably Latin in derivation – it doesn’t take much imagination to corrupt ‘castrum villarum’ (for ‘fortress of the villas’) to its modern day name, but Castrovillari was largely created by the Aragonese, the Spanish invaders of much of southern Italy in the Middle Ages. They constructed the huge castle (the Castello Aragonese) which dominates the town.

Other sights in Castrovillari are the Church of San Giuliano, the Franciscan convent, the church of Madonna del Castello, and the Ponte della Catena (Bridge of the Chain), which connects the two halves of the city. The town sits in a spectacular natural arena, framed by mountains such as Dolcedorme (2273m) and Pollino (2248m).

A selection of hotels in Cosenza province.

Viareggio Carnival 2008

Matteo — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:31:50 +0000

Hot off the press, a wide selection of photographs from the Viareggio Carnival, 2008. Carnival was early this year (starting early January), with not too many blue skies, and the ever-present political debunking was given added piquancy by the contemporary collapse of yet another government.

Below you’ll find a large selection of photographs (thank you Sig. Bonuccelli).

For the official carnival site, click here and follow the link on the left hand side that reads ’2008 Carnival’ as opposed to ‘Carnevale 2008′, and for booking hotels in Viareggio, click here.

Hotels for your visit to Viareggio and the carnival

Verona – getting ready for the Opera Festival

Matteo — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:05:39 +0000

Here is a group of photographs taken in and around the Arena in Verona as the almost military-scale preparations for the annual Opera Festival begin to shift up a gear.

The props adding a surreal feel to the night-time square around the arena are for the spectacle that is Aida, and the interior shots could almost – if you stared at the sun and squinted down from the galleries into the pit of the arena – imagined to be showing massed ranks of Roman Legionnaires. They’re not. They’re velvet seats.

Our main booking site has a wide range of hotels in Verona, many of which are in the relatively small old town itself, ideally placed for strolling down to the world famous Arena.

Sardinia – interior and the mountains

Matteo — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:47:54 +0000

The interior of Sardinia is not often visited by holidaymakers – the only time they might see it is as the plane circles for landing, and we’re not about to mount our soapbox and insist that you do something to right this state of affairs; let’s face it – Sardinia is about the food, the climate, the beach, and the sea. The impossibly white beaches and the impossibly clear-blue seas.

There are hotels inland, quite a few scattered along a littoral strip that may go inland for 5 kilometres or so, but the bulk are on the coast, if not on the beach itself. So here, to save you the trouble, we present a handful of shots showing the sorts of views you could expect to see should you ever venture up into those mountains you’ve glimpsed from your sun lounger on the beach.

Oh, and a wild Sardinian tortoise. But of course.

Hotels in Sardinia with instant booking

Verona Arena – inside and out.

Matteo — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:20:19 +0000

A selection of photographs of the incredible Verona Arena, year-round host to all sorts of concerts and events, the most famous of which is the annual Verona Opera Festival.

Below you’ll find some external shots, some shots of the arena itself (preparations under way for the festival) and some shots taken from within – underneath – the walls. The Verona arena is the third largest in Italy, and should you be lucky enough to visit this charming city, do take time to visit the Arena and take in the views from the upper gallery.

Hotels in Verona
Official site
Tickets for the Verona Opera

Funghi – the deadly and the sublime

Matteo — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:10:26 +0000

A blog to cover all bases, this one. Should your hotel restaurant have a mushroom-hunter on staff you may well be lucky enough to see a mushroom called ‘Caesar’s Mushroom’ (Amanita Caesarea, aka Ovolo buono, Coccora) on the menu. It’ll likely be served raw, thinly sliced with some parmesan shavings or other mushroom slices, and you absolutely must try it if in Italy. Incredibly delicate, and held by many to be the finest mushroom there is, the common name alludes to the fact that this was the favourite of the Roman emperors.

However, the rest of the family aren’t so nice. Members of the same Amanite family include the famous red and white fairy tale mushroom, the fly agaric (poisonous, hallucinogenic) and the kills-people-in-Italy-every-year-without-fail death cap. Below (from a mushroom show in the Garfagnana, close to Lucca) is a photograph of each, the sublime followed by the deadly.

Lucca hotels
Rome hotels