The Best Boutique Hotels in Venice

A labyrinth of canals and walkways perched precariously over the water, Venice is a floating city, unlike any other in the world. Trade in cars for vaporettos, gondolas and water taxis as you leave the hectic Roman roads behind. Venice is rich with history, architecture and eclectic boutique hotels reflecting the city's past. While Venice can be a peaceful romantic retreat, it is also the home of a spectacular Carnival during each year on the day before Ash Wednesday. Thousands of tourists flock to the city to celebrate the historically indulgent and festive event.

Where to stay:

Palazzo Barbarigo This small boutique hotel is ideally positioned on the banks of the Grand Canal and features a private dock and chic art deco interiors. For lovers of art and culture, the hotel offers packages which include entry to exhibits, tours and wine tastings with the room rate. They also offer a much-raved-about breakfast spread, which is rare in a city not typically renowned for its cuisine.

Ca Maria Adele An eclectic boutique hotel of only 12 rooms, this Ca Maria Adele is a quiet and intimate retreat. Unlikely combinations of styles and pieces come together to create a laid-back bohemian atmosphere, from the Japanese-inspired sitting room to the extravagantly detailed Moroccan terrace. Five of the guest rooms are also designated as "concept rooms," with even more elaborate furnishings based around themes like the Night Room or the Oriental Room.

What to do:

Piazza San Marco Also known as St. Mark's Square and often referred to as the "drawing room of Europe," Piazza San Marco has been the Venetian epicentre of activity and social intercourse since the ninth century. Surrounding the square are the Doge's Palace, St. Mark's Basilica and the Campanile, the iconic bell tower in the middle of the piazza. While it was once the meeting place of great historical minds, the square is now frequented mostly by tourists and pigeons. Even so, the area is a must-see location that is impossible to miss.

Palazzo Ducale di Venezia The former residence of the Doge of Venice, this magnificent gothic landmark faces Piazza San Marco on one side and the turquoise waters of the Venetian Lagoon on the other. Tours are offered of the palace's interiors, including the Doge's apartments and the institutional chambers. Guests can wander the palace and marvel at the lavish furnishings and priceless works of art.

Florence - Cascine Park

Cascine Park is the biggest public park that is only found in Florence, Italy which is more than 118 hectares. The park is narrow and long section of land situated between the Arno River and the smaller Mugnone River and its main entrance is just located near the Piazza Vittorio Veneto. It is the biggest green space in Florence, which is a home of rich vegetation, sporting facilities, annual festivals, the Faculty of Agricultural Science, the Scholl of Airborne Warfare and even couples of nightclubs are found in this park.

This park takes its name from the term "cascina" which literally means a farm house. Cascine Park was also a part of the Medici family estate, which was used as a game family reserved until 1737 when it was turned to be a leisure place by the Grand Duchy of Lorraine. Cascine Park is the favorite place of the Florentine's while having a worthwhile walk, having picnics and enjoying the good climate and the fresh air of the typical city. It is mostly visited by families with their little children, couples of pensioners, young people and as well as sportsmen like joggers, bikers and even horse riders who would like to have some fun and enjoyment.

The well-known race course is also located not too far from the park. On the east side of the park, a huge uncovered swimming pool is found while in the west side of the park is an open auditorium where dance performances and concerts are usually being help. It is really interesting to have a short yet worthwhile visit in Cascine Park.

Luxury Hotels in Venice Which Are Off the Beaten Track

Venice is somewhere everyone should visit at least once in their lives to experience the fabulous artworks, breathtaking architecture and huge piazzas on such a grand scale. It ideally lends itself to a romantic weekend with someone special; a surprise treat makes it even more magical. Pavement cafés with string quartets, buzzing trattoria serving local cuisine, cocktails served on a hotel terrace overlooking the Canal, and the idiosyncratic and pricey gondolas all make Venice a very unique and special place.

The ideal luxury hotel to complement such a weekend is somewhere discreet and a little off the beaten track. Perhaps a boutique hotel with individual rooms and personal service. Consider some of the following boutique hotels in Venice to really set the tone of the vacation, although you may have to book early to get the best pick.

Set in the Dorsodoro area of Venice, Pensione Accademia is a short walk from the Grand Canal and the Zattere quayside, this homely boutique hotel is set in a 17th century Venetian villa, complete with small garden areas. Share a bottle of Lambrusco as you relax on the garden chairs at the end of the day. With just 25 rooms and 2 garden suites this charming boutique hotel guarantees a quiet night's sleep and a breakfast feast.

Hotel Flora: This intimate and charming boutique hotel is tucked behind St Marks' Square. Decorated in 16th century style, the 43 rooms are elegant and intimate. Perfect for music lovers, the Hotel Flora is close to the newly restored Teatro La Fenice. There are also many church concerts nearby which are regularly held in Santa Maria Formosa Church and in La Pieta. Once the School of Painting, this historic palazzo is enhanced by the lovely gardens in which drinks, coffee and breakfast is served.

Residenza C' Bauta is smaller still, with just 7 rooms and 3 suites. It is close to the Fondazione Querini-Stampalia and the San Zaccaria area with its famous churches filled with breathtaking artwork by some of the Venetian masters. The receptionist will be sporting her traditional baute, a cloak worn during Carnival and first worn here, hence the name of this boutique hotel. The suites here are worth splashing out on for the extra space, private terrace and the jacuzzi bathtub.

San Clemente Palace is the ultimate island retreat, set in a former monastery on its own island, yet just a few minutes by motor launch from all the famous sights. Definitely one of the most opulent luxury hotels in Venice, the San Clemente Palace enjoys a serene setting with unique views of this historic city. Enjoy the gardens and swimming pool, the spacious and elegant rooms with antique furniture and luxurious fabrics. Truly one of the best luxury hotels in Venice for those splashing out on a honeymoon or special event.

Alex Brey co-founded Luxique, and has had a passion for travel for more than 20 years. So much so, he convinced others to join him in his pursuit to create a travel documentary highlighting some of the globe's finest destinations. During an almost three year process, he got to stay in some outstanding luxury hotels, soak up some vibrant cultures and enjoy some of the world's finest cuisines. He realized that the decision-making process for planning the perfect trip - from choosing the destination to getting the right hotel room - was something that could be improved. And so came the birth of Luxique, the website that caters for the discerning traveler.

More information available at Luxique

An Insiders Guide to Venice

It is said by most that have visited Venice that there is no other city quite like it in the world. Having said that, a lot of these people tend to only visit the once to see the tourist hotspots and tick them off the list. There is a lot more to Venice than the gondolas!

One way to see the city is by taking the lift up the campanile in St Mark's Square for the superb views. This is very popular so be prepared to queue. In my eyes, the 360º panorama view is definitely worth the wait. Expect to pay €3 for the lift to the top of the tower. The best time to visit is probably the early morning, when the locals are out and about going about their day to day lives. An excellent place for people watching.

Many people often forget to pay a visit to Torcello Lagoon Island because it is much further away from the more popular Murano and Burano lagoons. A 50-minute vaporetto ride from Fondamento Nuove takes you to a place so different from the touristy St Mark's Square that you forget you could be in Venice.

If you like the contrasting atmospheres between the lagoon islands and St Marks Square, try taking a a water bus across the lagoon to the Lido, As this is the only lagoon island with roads, try hiring a bike to see the parts of the island the tour buses don't take you. It won't be too strenuous as the 12 kilometres long paths are mostly flat!

If you like to eat out, Make sure you do at lunch time, and not the usual evening time. Most restaurants will offer lunch time offers to get the working venetians to eat with them. Don't expect to pay more than €20 a head. Make sure you bear in mind that you are in Venice so lunch time tends to be from 2pm onwards. For dinner, consider shopping at one of the cities markets in the morning and having a picnic type meal watching the sun set in one of the many public spaces.

To find out more about other exciting attractions Venice has to offer, there are plenty of Travel Guides available. These can give you advice from travellers with firsthand knowledge of your chosen destination.

A Bizarre Museum in Florence

"Ooooooooooooo!" I heard a chorus of horrified exclamations as a group of Italian school children entered the Zoological Museum in Florence. It housed one of the most interesting and bizarre assortments of artifacts I'd ever seen.

Of the museum's three collections the most fascinating and eerie was one of anatomic waxes created by artists in the 1600's to help medical students study the human body and learn anatomy without having to actually touch a cadaver. There are ten rooms lined with case after case that display wax bodies and body parts. The bodies have been split open and all the veins, blood vessels and fat are detailed. Perhaps most intriguing are 38 models showing how a baby develops in a mother's uterus during each stage of pregnancy. Modern day medical experts are amazed at the accuracy and detail of these models that were made over four hundred years ago.

The nearly two thousand wax pieces painted in bright reds, greens and yellows have a sort of macabre beauty about them. Whether you are walking by a bony hand, its skin torn back so you can see the tendons, muscles and blood vessels; or a model showing in minute detail what a fallopian pregnancy looks like; you can't help but admire the skillful artist who created these wax works. It is clear Clemente Susini; the sculptor who molded and painted all the figures is still admired by artists today. On our visit to the Zoological Museum we saw numerous art students sitting in front of the various displays of human body parts and trying to do sketches of what they saw. One young artist sat perfectly still staring at a human head. It had been titled sideways and the skin pulled off the skull so all the brain matter spilled out on the table for examination. There were moments in the Zoological Museum when I felt like I was in the middle of a Frankenstein movie set.

The second collection of the museum contains thousands of mammals, reptiles, birds, insects, fish and amphibians. The Medics, Florence's ruling family in the period between 1360 and 1737 sent explorers all over the world to collect items for this nature museum. Some specimens are stored in formaldehyde but many have been stuffed using what are obviously very old fashioned and primitive methods of taxidermy. You can see literally every animal species here from the smallest hummingbird to a huge sharp toothed grinning hippopotamus.

The last collection in the museum houses display boxes of fairly gruesome scenes created in the late 1600's by a wax artist named Gaetano Zumbo. One is entitled The Effects of Syphilis and another The Plague. Each features a multitude of decaying and dismembered corpses. Little babies lie dead beside their mothers whose bodies rest on piles of human skulls. Toothless, white haired, naked elderly are splayed on the rocks outside a cave. It's a graphic reminder of the devastation brought about by disease in the time before modern medical technology.

As I made my way out of the Zoological Museum a busy, bustling crowd of middle school students entered one of the rooms filled with eviscerated wax cadavers. Oooooooooooo they screamed almost in unison horror. Even though I don't speak Italian it wasn't hard to guess what they were probably talking about as they walked beside the display cases.

The Zoological Museum in Florence isn't the easiest place to find. It's on a narrow winding street and you have to walk up four flights of stone stairs to reach the floor where the displays are housed. It's worth the steep climb!

Imperial Extravagance - Luxury Hotels in Rome

Some would say Rome began it all: Empire, luxury, decadence and pure aesthetic beauty. Despite the rise and fall of dynasties, today Rome retains its imperial status and remains one of the world's premiere cultural epicentres and luxury hotel destinations. Come for the art, the food or to stand in the St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. Whatever you come for, Rome is sure to steal your heart and lure you back, especially if you happen to lose a few coins in the Trevi Fountain.

Where to stay

Residenza Napoleone III: walking through the grand wooden doors of this luxury hotel is like passing through a portal to Rome's luxurious past. Opulent historical furnishings fill every room, from antique paintings and sculptures to ancient columns and artefacts. Each of the three enormous guest rooms features original oil paintings, hand-stencilled walls, tapestries and silk linens. Guests are catered to throughout their stay with a range of services from private tour guides and chauffeurs to spa services on request.

Aldrovandi Palace: the perfect place to indulge in seclusion without leaving the heart of the city, this palatial, luxury hotel is tucked away into an upscale residential sector of Rome. The owners offer their guests an urban resort experience with extravagant amenities, including a private park and garden, tennis, golf and polo facilities and an haute cuisine restaurant headed by culinary genius Alfonso Iaccarino.

What to see

Vatican City: Vatican hill has a universal draw, not only for those of religious inclination but also for lovers of art, architecture, beauty and spirituality, all of which are present in throughout the city and in St. Peter's Basilica, the largest church in the world. Housing some of the most valuable artistic treasures and religious artefacts throughout the ages, the Basilica, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and Vatican City are well worth the hours in line you will surely be waiting.

The Trevi Fountain: while Rome is known as the city of seven hills, it is also, arguably, the city of fountains. From Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona to Ceccarini's fountain of Neptune in Piazza del Popolo, the Trevi is perhaps the greatest of these national treasures and is also the largest Baroque fountain in the city. This may be another obvious attraction, and it will certainly be swarming with tourists at any given time; but on a quick weekend away, once you've hit the Vatican and this masterpiece of liquid and marble, a mere Euro coin tossed over your shoulder can ensure your eventual return to take on the subtler nuances of this great city.

Tom Ingrams is a travel writer who specialises in the higher end of the market. On a recent trip to Rome, he stayed in some of the city's best luxury hotels.

Weekend Beaks to Venice

The ideal place for small breaks, Venice is perhaps the most gorgeous and idealistic town in Europe. It is actually an astonishing destination, this floating town is one of Italy's riches and has enthused and stimulated artists, singers, poets and writers for many decades. Its churches and museums are house to invaluable works of art and its collapsing buildings only add to the added sophisticated feeling that trickles from the zigzag passageways and flowing canals.

Frequently we have visualized Venice in so many movies and pictures that we all have an representation of this city embedded on our brains; however the Queen of the Adriatic by no means fails to live up to its status. Water laps at the foot of palaces, bobbling boats line up the canals and the sight across the water from the Palazzo Ducale is just amazing and out of this world and seems as Canaletto decorated it.

Established approximately fifteen hundred years ago on a group of 117 islands, Venice is an amalgamation of small districts. The churches and public squares now connected by a network of zigzag laneways and canals are edged by architectural trinkets - all that remnants of the city's glory days as one of the most significant business connections between the East and West.

Ever since its credited days Venice has not changed so much, its magnificent medieval constructions are jammed in a time twist that no one dare challenge or upset. An ultimate city for tiny breaks Venice is very compact and ideal for walking but you can get lost among the city's snaky lanes.

Even though the chief views such as St Mark's Square and Basilica, the Rialto Bridge and the Palazzo Ducale are crowded with large number of people all the year around from all over the world, at the same time it is not complicated to get away from the crowds. The backside streets are creased with buildings that in any other city would be most important attractions, the museums are bursting with riches and the drowsy islands of Italy's most well-known lagoon embraces glories of their own.

The everlasting magnificence of Venice will make an impression even on the most cynical of travelers. Make a quick visit to Venice as it may have a flashy and a colorful past but it also has a vague future. The ever increasing number of travelers and thinning local population cause danger to its position as a highly structured theme park and increasing water levels intimidate to flood its palaces, cathedrals and museums

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Rome

When one refers to Rome, it comes across as an exciting and beautiful city, which always reminds people of its past. Rome is the capital of Italy and comprises of multiple bistros and cafes, excellent nightlife, well-lit and lively streets and squares. Visitors, one can visit early monuments, Middle Age and Renaissance structures and fountains, and world-class museums.

Rome has already celebrated 2760 anniversaries. The city celebrates its anniversary on April 21st ever year, which is a public holiday. The city enjoys a temperate Mediterranean climate, which makes it enjoyable to visit in autumn, spring and at times in the winter months. However, in July and August, the weather becomes hot and humid.

The city has a population of more than 3,700,000 people and is in the Central European Time zone. Important airports are the Leonardo Da Vinci airport, located 11 miles from center city and the Ciampino Airport. Rome is well connected by railroads. One may avail of tickets from vending machines located inside domestic and international arrival halls and at railway stations.

Rome runs a well-coordinated and helpful bus network within the city. People may also decide to use the standard yellow and white licensed taxis with meters. Rates are fixed but one may have to pay additional charges depending on baggage, late night hours, as well as on Sundays and holidays.

While sightseeing in Rome, it is advisable to walk. This is attributed to the geographical area of the country, which is relatively small. Places of historic importance are spread over a small area and shopping centers and The Vatican are all located close by. The city offers a plethora of sites and sounds for all visitors. From museums and art galleries to the magnificent Coliseum, there is enough endearing beauty in the city to have everyone spellbound.

Rome provides detailed information on Rome, Rome Hotels, Cheap Flights Rome, Ancient Rome and more. Rome is affiliated with Venice Beach California.

Best Places in Florence, Italy

Italy has been the place being known due to its tourists' attractions and history. It is also being adjudged as the cradle of the medieval period. Many things had taken place long before, which made Italy a great place to visit in. With its history, it also turned Italy one of the most famous place that people love to visit nowadays. In Italy, we can have the chance to find those meaningful architectures which made them historical and famous, and among these things are found in Florence.

Florence is one of the cities of Italy where you can find lots of amazing stuff and things which you have not seen even before. IF you are going to wonder about the most ancient spots, you can always find it in Florence. If you wanted to have your vacation, you can have Florence, as among the place that you can visit. There are no regrets for you for sure since it is a very popular place for travelers like you. The best things that you can do in order to have a meaningful stay in Florence is to make your reservations, since we know the fact that today is the season of joy, happiness and travel. Make sure to visit each place which made the place of Florence valuable to the various Florentine, and as well as with the whole world.

There are several places that you can choose to visit in, which for both adult and children. Upon your visit in Florence, you will be overwhelmed with the things that they have treasured for a long year, and among these things are the masterpieces of those famous artists in the history. Have your chance to glance at their wanders, and for sure you will be filled with much happiness with the famous place of Florence, Italy.