Year-round Service to Rome on American

American Airlines has announced upgrade its service between Rome and the United States to year-round beginning April 10, 2007. Previously the service had only been seasonal. During the peak summer season both routes out of Chicago and New York will be flown daily. Beginning Oct. 28, 2007, and continuing through March 31, 2008, the service will be flown four times …

5 Tips for Visiting Italy in 2007

1. Book ahead and I don’t just mean airfare and hotels. If there are restaurants you have your heart set on, call a few weeks ahead for reservations or at least call the first day you arrive in that city. Tickets for the most popular museums and sites – Florence’s Uffizi and the Vatican Museums in Rome – as well …

Mona Lisa’s Resting Place Found?

The Italian news agency ANSA reports that an Italian scholar has determined that the subject of one of the world’s most famous paintings — Mona Lisa — was buried in the Convent of St. Orsula in Florence. “I’m sure her tomb is in there,” Leonardo scholar Giuseppe Pallanti said Thursday. I’ve pored through thousands of archive pages and I’m convinced …

Travel + Leisure’s Take on Italia

Travel + Leisure has a Milan fixation lately; granted they do have a correspondent based there. In the January 2007 issue, Valerie Waterhouse introduces readers to three new boutiue hotels — the affordable Vietnammonamour, the former factory, turned sleek NHow and the new 7-star (which we have mentioned here before) Town House Galleria. In the Feb. issue, Waterhouse checks out …

My Love For Magazines

You should see my apartment. Wait, maybe not. There are magazines strewn about here and there (I am a true magazine junkie; I receive nearly every major travel magazine; as well as People, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Bark, Elle, Oprah, uhm, you get the idea.) With all of this magazine mayhem, I have had to come up with a …

All You Ever Wanted to Know About Florence

Introducing Dream of Italy’s Collected Florence e-book! The downloadable PDF includes all of Dream of Italy’s tips, features and reviews for the city of Florence — updated in December 2006 — from over four years of back issues. All of the Web sites in the e-book’s 57 pages are hot linked for easy access to additional information on the Internet. …

Those $299 r/t Rome Tix On Sale NOW!

Thanks to my friend Joe for letting me know that the special $299 roundtrip New York to Rome tickets on Eurofly are ON SALE NOW, not starting on Jan. 21 (as mentioned in Arthur Frommer’s column below). I just did some searching and right now there are tickets still available! You must book online at www.euroflyusa.com. Joe also correctly notes …

Tour Piedmont with The Wine Coach!

(This is a paid advertisement.) If you’re looking for a change of scenery this year consider traveling to Italy with your own private Sommelier! Laurie Forster, The Wine Coach® is sponsoring a 6-day wine tour of the Piedmont region from April 16 to 22, 2007. Touring the majestic countryside of Piedmont, you will visit six prestigious wineries in Barolo, Barbaresco …

Steal! N.Y. – Rome for $299 r/t

I love Arthur Frommer. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting for him and writing for his magazine, but mostly I love him because he still delivers the goods on budget travel. For example, the announcement in his recent column: This spring you’ll be able to make that trip for $299 per person round-trip, departing from New York during the short …

Changes at the Vatican Museums

This is an excerpt from the Dec 2006/Jan. 2007 Special Report: Rome: Starting this month, museum goers unaccompanied by tour guides will need to wait an extra hour until 10:00 a.m. to enter the Vatican Museums. Since the museums will close at the same time as in 2006, 1:45 p.m. in the winter and 4:45 p.m. in the summer, independent …