Not All Italian Websites Look So Bad

May 25, 2008 · Filed Under Good Italian Things · 4 Comments 

At the risk of being accused of being a pot calling a kettle black (Yep, I know this blog is getting rather cluttered), I have to say that after doing a little web based research for my latest project, my Italy is in Italian contemporary art site, I’ve come across some rather good looking, and, generally, well written English sections of Italian websites. Well, a family of them actually.

These sites form part of a mini-network run by the Ferragamo family, of the fashion house “Salvatore Ferragamo”. WIth the possible exception of the Viesca Estate site, all of the others are very slick.

I know they are at the top end of the market, but even so, it’s good to see what can be done. OK, so these people have money, of that there is no doubt, but, to their credit, they appear to know how to spend it rather wisely.

I hope they won’t mind too much, but I’ve stolen the list of links to each of these sites and popped them below, so you can have a quick gander, if you so desire.

Fashion
Salvatore Ferragamo - Fashionable clothes
www.ferragamo.com

Resort & Hospitality
Lungarno Hotels
www.lungarnohotels.com

Resort and Winery
Il Borro
www.ilborro.com

Marine Industry
Camper & Nicholsons Yachting Ltd - motor cruisers to dream about.
www.cnyachting.com

Nautor’s Swan - Lovely yachts - exploring the boats virtually is a pleasure.
www.nautorswan.com

Prestigious Rental and Villas
Il Borro
www.villailborro.com

Viesca Estate
www.viescaestate.com

As for this here blog, it’s going to get a facelift shortly.

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Expo 2015 - Will Milan Have Enough Hotels?

April 23, 2008 · Filed Under Milan · Comment 

It’s odd what you end up chatting about while taking a taxi. Yesterday, for example, I got talking with the taxi driver about the forthcoming Expo in Milan.

After asking if I was English, and from London, the Expo event came up and the driver observed that he did not know if Milan would be able to accommodate all the visitors which the Expo event will draw. He had a point. Milan is a tiny city when compared to a metropolis like London, and Milan does tend to become pretty clogged up on the accommodation front when there is some major trade show on.

However the Expo is potentially much bigger than a mere trade show, and all the visitors will need to stay somewhere. Yes, the taxi driver’s point got me thinking. Time to track down some answers.

A quick hop over to the Milan Expo web site provided me with some detailed answers on the accommodation front. More specifically part of the Expo 2015 proposal document specifically addresses this issue in Chapter 12 - The accommodation plan for visitors and participants’ staff which gives plenty of detail on how Milan and its hinterland will absorb all the extra visitors who are expected to come to the Expo event.

To briefly summarise the accommodation plan, what the Milanese authorities plan to do is the following:

  • construct of a few more hotels,
  • provide temporary facilities for accommodating exhibitors’ staff,
  • construct a 2000 bed Olympic style village,
  • build a ‘youth village’, and various other facilities.

In addition, the Milanese authorities plan to promote bed and breakfast type facilties, as well as relying on people staying in hotels within a 90 minute driving time radius of Milan.

It appears as though the accommodation aspects of the Milan Expo event have been well considered - otherwise I guess Milan would not have been given the opportunity to hold the event.

It was an interesting query that the taxi driver raised though. And I’m sure he’s not the only one to have considered this.

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Roccaraso, Abruzzo, Italy - Skiing off the beaten piste.

November 23, 2007 · Filed Under Holidays · 5 Comments 

I have several friends from the south of Italy, but I was rather surprised to learn that one of them, Ciro, is an avid skier. I imagined that he must have made annual pilgrimages to northern Italy to learn to do his thing. He must be one heck of a dedicated skier, I thought, because he comes all the way from Naples. Wow, impressive, I thought.

Then I discovered that he had learnt to ski down in Naples. Down in Naples??!! Even more interesting, and this conjured up images in my mind’s eye of him shooting down Vesuvius, hotly, in every sense, pursued by a flow of lava. Talk about extreme sports!

Anyway, as it turns out, he did not learn to ski in Naples, but he did learn to ski quite to the famous city. Well, not that near, seeing as it takes around two hours or so to get to one of the ski resorts that is not too far from Naples. But then again, when I came to think about it, it used to take my ski chums and I around 2 hours to get to the runs that are close to Milan, and sometimes it took much longer, especially when we headed for Val d’Aosta. All this means that there really is no reason why people from sunny southern Naples cannot pass the weekend skiing. Indeed, I found out from my friend that quite a few Neapolitans have ski chalets, and this also appeared to be rather odd to someone who usually associated skiing with high mountainous areas, not areas famous for sun and sea. My curiosity had been well and truly piqued, so I wanted to know more.

Well, after chatting a little, I discovered that my friend Ciro learnt to scoot down the pistes in the area around Roccaraso, which is to the north east of Naples in the Abruzzo region. From the photos I’ve seen, it looks to be a lovely area, although I already knew that Abruzzo was a beautiful region which is famed for its with its beautiful parks and wildlife, including quite a number of bears.

If you would like to find out a little more, about the skiing, not necessarily about the bears, then you could have a look at this site: Roccaraso.net, which will tell you which areas are open, give the names of a few hotels,and this link will take you to a .pdf map of the pistes: Map The only slight problem is that everything appears to be in Italian. Hence the title of this post - it does appear that this area is not all that well known outside of Italy. Here are some photos of the snow, so you can see that I am not just making this all up!

I suppose most people think of the Alps and the Dolomites when they consider coming to hurl themselves down the slopes in Italy. But, if you’d like to try somewhere a little different, and possibly, not quite as crowded, then Roccaraso might well be worth checking out. After all, there can be no real doubt that the people who gave the world the pizza certainly know when they are on to a good thing.

A surprising bunch these Neapolitans.

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