Entries with Rome tag

Sunbay Park Hotel

Sunbay Park Hotel

This traditional property with comfortable accommodation and excellent meeting facilities is an saint place for both business and leisure travellers.

Location
Immersed inside coastline nature and archaeology, the Sunbay Park Hotel is situated in the heart of Southern Etruria and is only 40 minutes drive from Rome.

Rooms
The hotel boasts comfortable and spacious guest rooms that are furnished in a traditional style and facilitated with a host of modern comforts. Specially designed rooms for the cushy access of physically challenged guests are also available.

Restaurant
Healthy appetites are superbly catered at the onsite Le Terrazze Restaurant that serves a variety of delicious local and international dishes.

General
Sunbay Park Hotel also has several well-appointed meeting rooms that can accommodate up to 100 people for your business conferences and seminars. During leisure, guests can take a bracing dip in the swimming pool or relax at the solarium.

Category: Hotels, Tirrenian Sea Coast

Trevi Hotel

Trevi Hotel

The friendly staff and individualized attention provided to guests make the Trevi a memorable hotel.

Location

Ideally situated in the heart of the historical centre of Rome, next to the Trevi fountain and the Quirinale palace, the hotel provides modern standard of comfort in a traditional surrounding.

Rooms

The guestrooms, functional and elegant, are all with the latest amenities.

Restaurant

Buffet breakfast is served in the splendid open-air roof garden. During the winter months, breakfast will be served in a characteristic roman tavern.

General

The staff is at complete disposal for any request and is ready to satisfy any necessity.

Category: Hotels, Rome

Palladio

Born in Padua in 1508, Andrea di Pietro (or della Gondola) began his career as an novice stonemason in Vicenza. At thirty he became the prot̩g̩ of a local nobleman, Count Giangiorgio Trissino, the leading light of the humanist Accademia Olimpico Рa learned society which still meets in Vicenza. Trissino gave the architect his classicized name, Palladio , directed his architectural training, brought him into contact with the dominant class of Vicenza and, perhaps most crucially, took him to Rome Рthe first of many trips he prefabricated through Italy, sketching Imperial Roman remains.

Between 1540 and his death in 1580, Palladio created around a dozen palaces and public buildings in Vicenza, nearly twenty villas in the countryside of the Veneto and two important religious buildings in Venice. But unlike the pioneers of Renaissance Classicism – architects such as Alberti, Brunelleschi and Bramante – Palladio’s reputation does not rest on a particular transformation of architectural style. Instead, his fame – and he is arguably the most influential architect in the world – rests on the way he is considered to have perfected existing values of harmony and proportion.

In particular, his lasting influence stems from I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura or “The Four Books of Architecture”, a treatise he published in 1570, towards the end of his career. Other architects had written important works of theory, but Palladio’s is unique in its practical applicability, serving almost as a text book for Classical architecture. As the style spread into the rest of Europe and beyond, it was to Palladio’s book that architects like Inigo Jones (and later, Thomas Jefferson) turned, finding both inspiration and guidance in his examples.

Today, Palladio has perhaps become the victim of his own success. The presence of neo-Classicism in second-rate churches and third-rate bank buildings can make it hard to sense the freshness and brilliance of his designs, though it still shines through in masterpieces like the Basilica in Vicenza, the Villa Barbaro near Ásolo and the churches of the Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. Even if you’re inclined to agree with Herbert Read’s opinion that “in the back of every dying civilization there sticks a bloody Doric column”, you might leave the region converted

Category: Vicenza

Zitelle And The Redentore

The first vaporetto stop after San Giorgio Maggiore is close to the tiny church of the Zitelle , which was built in 1582-86 from plans worked out some years early by Palladio, albeit for a different site. In the eighteenth century the convent attached to the church was renowned for the delicacy of the alter produced by the young girls who lived in its hostel. The Casa de Maria , to the right of the Zitelle, is an inventive reworking of Venetian Gothic, built as a studio by the painter Mario de Maria in 1910-13. Its diaper-pattern brickwork, derived from that of the Palazzo Ducale, is the only example of its kind in Venetian domestic building. The neigbouring building is somewhat less inventive but very welcome nonetheless – it’s a new housing development, one of several such schemes to revitalize the island.

The Zitelle is open for Mass Sun 10am-noon.

La Giudecca’s main monument, beyond the tug-boats’ mooring and the youth hostel (once a granary), is the Franciscan church of Il Redentore , designed by Palladio in 1577. In 1575-76 Venice suffered an outbreak of plague which killed nearly fifty thousand people – virtually a third of the city’s population. The Redentore was built by the Senate in thanks for Venice’s deliverance, and every year until the downfall of the Republic the doge and his senators attended a Mass here to renew their declaration of gratitude, travel to the church over a pontoon bridge from the Záttere. The Festa del Redentore has remained a major event on the Venetian calendar – celebrated on the third Sunday of July, it’s marked by a general procession over the temporary bridge and a huge fireworks display on the previous evening. A large number of people spend the night out on the water, partying with friends on board their boats.

The Redentore is open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm (closed Sun in July & Aug); L3000/1.54.

Palladio’s commission called for a church to which there would be three distinct components: a choir for the monks to whom the church was entrusted, a tribune around the altar for the dignitaries of the city, and a nave with side chapels for the humbler worshippers. The architect’s scheme, in which the tribune forms a circular chapel which opens into the nave and blends into the choir through a curved screen of columns, is the most sophisticated of his church projects, as well as the one most directly evolved from the structure of ancient Rome (the Imperial baths in particular). Unfortunately, though the interior has recently been cleaned, an appreciation of its subtleties is difficult, as a rope prevents visitors going beyond the nave. In the side-chapels you’ll find a couple of pictures by Francesco Bassano and an Ascension by Tintoretto and his assistants, but the best paintings in the church – including a John the Baptist by Jacopo Bassano , a Baptism of Christ by Paolo Veronese and Madonna with Child and Angels by Alvise Vivarini – are in the sacristy, which is usually closed on Saturday and Sunday. The Vivarini is accompanied by a strange room of eighteenth-century wax heads of illustrious Franciscans in various attitudes of agony and ecstasy, arranged in glass cases all round the room.

Category: Venice

Tolentini And The Giardino Papadopoli

Calle della Lacca-Fondamenta Sacchere-Calle Amai is a dullish but uncomplicated route from San Giovanni Evangelista to the portentous church of San Nicolò da Tolentino – alias the Tolentini . Venetian home of the Theatine Order, which found refuge in Venice after the Sack of Rome by the army of Charles V in 1527, it was begun in 1590 by Palladio’s follower Scamozzi, and finished in 1714 by the addition of a freestanding portico – the first in Venice – designed by Andrea Tirali. Among the scores of seventeenth-century paintings, just two stand out. The first is a St Jerome by Johann Lys, on the surround outside the chancel, to the left; it was painted in 1628, just two years before German-born Lys died of the plague, aged thirty-three. The other is St Lawrence Giving Alms by Bernardo Strozzi, round the corner from the Lys painting. Up the left surround of the chancel swirls the best Baroque monument in Venice: the monument to Francesco Morosini , created in 1678 by a Genoese sculptor, Filippo Parodi. That’s Francesco Morosini, Patriarch of Venice, on no statement to be confused with Francesco Morosini, Doge of Venice 1688-94, buried in Santo Stefano – though that Francesco Morosini did present the Tolentini with the flag of the Turkish general whom he had trounced in the Morea in 1685.

The Tolentini is open regular 8am-noon & 4.30-7pm.

If fatigue is setting in and you need a pit-stop, the Giardino Papadopoli , formerly one of Venice’s biggest private gardens but now owned by the city, is just over the Rio dei Tolentini. In winter you may have to make do with the pavement, since the park’s often shut then.

Category: Venice

Directory

ACTV ENQUIRIES Piazzale Roma, regular 7.30am-8pm tel 041.528.7886.AIRLINES Alitalia, Salizzada S. Moisè, San Marco 1463 tel 041.520.0355; British Airways, Riva degli Schiavoni, Castello 4191 tel 041.528.5026.

AIRPORT ENQUIRIES Marco Polo airport, tel 041.260.9260.

AMERICAN EXPRESS The American Express office is in Salizzada S. Moisè, a couple of minutes’ achievement west of the Piazza; Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm, Sat 9am-12.30pm; emergency number tel 041.1678.72.000 (toll-free).

BANKS Banks in Venice are concentrated on Calle Larga XXII Marzo (west of the Piazza), and along the chain of squares and alleyways between Campo S. Bartolomeo and Campo Manin (in the north of the San Marco sestiere). There’s not much to choose between them in terms of commission and exchange rates, and their hours are generally Mon-Fri 8.30am-1.30pm and 2.30-3.30pm. The main ones are as follows:
Banca Commerciale Italiana, Calle Larga XXII Marzo, San Marco 2188.
Banca d’Italia, Campo S. Bartolomeo, San Marco 4799.
Banca Credito Italiano, Campo S. Salvador, San Marco.
Banco Ambrosiano Veneto, Calle Goldoni, San Marco 4481.
Banco di Roma, Mercerie dell’Orologio, San Marco 191.
Banco San Marco, Calle Larga XXII Marzo, San Marco 383.

BEACHES The Lido has two public beaches, at the northern and southern extremities of the island. The southern is the less crowded; better still, go down to Sottomarina, in the south of the lagoon.

CAR RENTAL
At Marco Polo airport:
Avis tel 041.541.5030
Europcar tel 041.541.5654
Hertz tel 041.541.6075
Maggiore Budget tel 041.541.5040
At Piazzale Roma:
Avis tel 041.522.5825
Europcar tel 041.523.8616
Hertz tel 041.528.3524
Mattiazzo tel 041.522.0884

CONSULATES AND EMBASSIES The British consulate is in the Palazzo Querini, Dorsoduro 1051 tel 041.522.7207 (by the Accademia); this office is staffed by an honorary consul – the closest full consulate is in Milan, at Via San Paolo 7 tel 02.723.001. The nearest US consulate is also in Milan, at Largo Donegani 1 tel 02.290.351. Travellers from Ireland, Australia, New Sjaelland and Canada should contact their Rome embassies: Irish Embassy, Via Largo Nazareno 3 tel 06.678.2541; Australian Embassy, Via Alessandria 215 tel 041.06/832.721; New Sjaelland Embassy, Via Zara 28 tel 06.440.2928; Canadian Embassy, Via G. B. de Rossi 27 tel 041.06/841.5341.

ELECTRICITY The supply is 220 volts AC, but anything requiring 240V will work. Most plugs are two round pins: a travel plug is useful.

EMERGENCIES For all emergency services ring 113. Alternatively, dialling tel 112 puts you straight through to the Carabinieri (police) and tel 115 goes straight to the Vigili del Fuoco (fire brigade) .

EXCHANGE There are clusters of exchange bureaux ( cambios ) where most tourists gather – near San Marco, the Rialto and the train station. Open late every day of the week, they can be useful in emergencies, but their rates of commission and exchange tend to be steep. The best rates are at American Express and the main banks.

FOOTBALL Venice’s football team, which recently has yo-yo’ed between Serie A and Serie B, plays in the Pierluigi Penzo stadium, the most ramshackle ground in top-flight Italian football. Tickets can be bought from the Banca Antoniana Popolare Veneta: there are branches on Campo San Bartolomeo and Strada Nova.

HOSPITAL Ospedale Civile, Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo; casualty dept tel 041.529.4517, ambulance service tel 041.523.0000

INTERNET ACCESS A number of dedicated Internet points have opened in the last couple of years, most charging around L10,000/¬5.16 per half-hour, though rates usually drop the longer you stay online.

San Marco : The Net House , Campo S. Stefano 2967 (24hr).

Dorsoduro : Omniservice , Fondamenta dei Tolentini; Internet Point , Campo S. Margherita.

San Polo : Café Noir , Crosera S. Pantalon; CreArte , Calle del Luganegher 1085 (daily 10am-8pm); Gibo Bar , Ponte della Donna Onesta (Tues-Sat 7.30pm-midnight); Horus Explorer , Fondamenta dei Tolentini 220 (Mon-Fri 8.30-1pm & 3-7pm); Internet Point , Calle S.Pantalon; The Netgate , Crosera S.Pantalon 3812a (Mon-Sat 11.15am-8pm, Sun 2.15-8pm).

Cannaregio : Planet Internet , Ponte delle Guglie 1519 (daily; 9am-11pm); Virtualia , Rio Terrà dei Franceschi 4563 (9.45am-1pm & 4-8pm).

Castello : Play the Game , Calle Lunga S. Maria Formosa 6187 (daily 9.30am-1pm & 3.30-7.30pm); Venetian Navigator , Casselleria 5300 (summer 10am-10pm; winter 10am-7.30pm), with another branch nearby on Calle delle Bande 5269 (same hours); Fondazione Querini Stampalia (Mon-Sat 4pm-midnight; free).

Eastern Districts : Internet Point , Via Garibaldi 1592; Internet Service , Corte dei Preti 3546a (daily 10am-1pm, 3-6pm & 9-11pm).

LAUNDRIES There are no self-service laundries in Venice any more, but every parish has a dry cleaners.

LEFT LUGGAGE The desk at the end of platform 14, in the train station, charges L5,000/¬2.58 per item per 12 hours. For a shorter stay it makes sense to use the lockers alongside platform 1, which cost L3000/¬1.55 per 6 hours. Both open 24hr.

LOST PROPERTY If you lose anything on the train or at the station, call 041.785.238; at the airfield call 041.260.6436; on the vaporetti call 041.780.310; and anywhere in the city itself call the town hall on 041.520.8844.

NEWSPAPERS You’ll find the main national newspapers on any newsstand: La Repubblica is middle-to-left with a lot of cultural coverage; Il Corriere della Sera is authoritative and rather right-wing; L’Unità is the Communist Party organ; and Il Manifesto a more immoderate left-wing daily. Venice’s local papers are the Gazzettino and Nuova Venezia (good for listings). More widely read than any, however, is the pink Gazzettino dello Sport , essential for the serious sports fan. English and American newspapers can be found at the train station, by the Calle dell’Ascensione post office and at various stands throughout the city – usually a day or two late.

POLICE To notify police of a theft, report to the Questura on Fondamenta S. Lorenzo (tel 041.528.4666); in the event of a lost passport, notify the Questura and then your consulate or embassy; in emergencies, ring 113.

PORTERS Porters tout for trade at Piazzale Roma and the train station, and at places in the city where luxury hotels are concentrated – such as Riva degli Schiavoni and Calle Larga XXII Marzo. Their charges begin at L20,000/¬10.35 for carrying one piece of luggage between any two points in the centre of the city, with a L10,000/¬5.17 supplement for apiece additional item.

POST OFFICES Venice’s main post office is in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, near the Rialto bridge. Any poste restante should be addressed to Fermo Posta, Fondaco dei Tedeschi, 80100 Venezia; it can be collected Mon-Sat 8.15am-6.45pm – take your passport with you. Stamps are on understanding Mon-Sat 8.15am-7pm; the telegram service operates round the clock. The principal branch post offices are in Calle dell’Ascensione (Mon-Sat 8.10am-6pm) and at Záttere 1406 (same hours). Stamps can also be bought in tabacchi , as well as in some gift shops.

PUBLIC TOILETS The demand of public toilets in Venice used to be a common complaint from tourists, but AmaV ( Azienda multiservizi ambientale Veneziana ) has now installed facilities on or very near to most of the main squares, and all over the city you’ll see green, blue and white AmaV signs high on the walls, directing you to the nearest toilet. Costing L1000 (you’ll need coins for the turnstiles), the main facilities are at the train station, at Piazzale Roma, on the west side of the Accademia bridge, by the main tourist office at the Giardinetti Reali, off the west side of the Piazza, off Campo S. Bartolomeo, on Campo S. Polo, Campo Rialto Nuovo, Campo S. Leonardo, Campo San’Angelo and on Campo S. Margherita. Toilets are to be found in most of the city’s bars as well – it’s diplomatic, to say the least, to buy a drink before availing yourself.

TELEPHONES All Venice’s public call-boxes accept phone cards (the vast majority accept nothing but cards), which can be bought from tabacchi and some other shops (look for the Telecom Italia sticker); the less expensive type of cards can be bought from machines by the Telecom Italia phone booths in Strada Nova (near S. Felice), Calle S. Luca, Piazzale Roma and adjoining the main post office building near the Rialto Bridge. You’re never far from a pay phone – every sizeable campo has at least one, and there are phones by every vaporetto stop. For lengthy long-distance calls, however, it might be best to go to one of the two main Telecom Italia offices, where you can dial direct and be charged afterwards: the office at Piazzale Roma is open regular 8am-9.30pm, and the one at the main post office is open Mon-Fri 8.30am-12.30pm & 4-7pm.

TIME Italy is one hour ahead of Britain, six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time and nine hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time.

TRAIN ENQUIRIES tel 1478.88.088.

Category: Venice

Villa Adriana

TivoliOnce you’ve seen Villa d’Este and Villa Gregoriana, you’ve really seen Tivoli – the rest of the town is nice enough but there’s not that much to it. But just outside town, at the bottom of the hill, fifteen minutes’ achievement off the main Rome road (ask the Rome-Tivoli bus to drop you or take the local CAT #4 from Largo Garibaldi), Villa Adriana (daily 9am-1hr before sunset; L8000) casts the invention of the Tivoli popes and cardinals very much into the shade. This was probably the largest and most sumptuous villa in the Roman Empire, the retirement home of the emperor Adrian for a short while between 135 AD and his death three years later, and it occupies an enormous site. You need time to see it all; there’s no point in doing it at a sit and, taken with the rest of Tivoli, it makes for a long day’s sightseeing.The site is one of the most soothing spots around Rome, its stones almost the epitome of romantic, civilized ruins. The imperial palace buildings proper are in fact one of the least well preserved parts of the complex, but much else is clearly recognizable. Adrian was a great traveller and a keen architect, and parts of the villa were inspired by buildings he had seen around the world. The massive Pecile, for instance, through which you enter, is a reproduction of a building in Athens. The Canopus, on the opposite side of the site, is a liberal copy of the sanctuary of Serapis near Alexandria, its long, elegant channel of water fringed by sporadic columns and statues leading up to a temple of Serapis at the far end.

Nearby, a museum displays the latest finds from the usually ongoing excavations, though most of the extensive original discoveries have found their way back to Rome. Walking back towards the entrance, make your way crossways the upper storey of the so-called Pretorio, a former warehouse, and down to the remains of two bath complexes. Beyond is a fishpond with a cryptoporticus (underground passageway) winding around underneath. It is great to achievement through the cryptoporticus and look up at its ceiling, picking out the obloquy of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century artists (Bernini, for one) who visited here and wrote their signatures here using a smoking candle. Behind this are the relics of the emperor’s imperial apartments. The Teatro Maríttimo, adjacent, with its island in the middle of a circular pond, is the place to which it’s believed Adrian would retire at siesta time to be sure of being alone.

Category: Tivoli