Archive for 'Localities'

For the past week, we have been focusing on Italy as a very special kind of getaway destination: as a wedding destination. In previous posts, we discussed the legalities and necessary information about getting married in Italy as a foreigner and we listed some unique Italian wedding traditions that you might want to incorporate into your wedding if you have found a vacation rental in Italy and are getting married there. However, all these things are only useful if you have found the right place to get married. If you are looking for somewhere that can both accommodate you and your guests and act as the actual wedding venue itself, then this is the article for you! In the next few posts we will be highlighting some stunning villas on our website that are used to, and set up for, hosting weddings in Italy. However, in this article, we are focusing on one of the most beautiful and picture-perfect venues among them: Palazzo Rosadi.

Italy is beautiful in Spring; the countryside is lush, the cities less full, the queues outside tourist attractions smaller, the temperatures more pleasant, and the prices of things lower. It is a great time to plan a vacation to most parts of the country, however, there are some destinations that are particular lovely in Spring, at their best at this time of year. We began outlining some of these spots in the last post and will continue to in the next but here are two more to keep in mind...

Last March, I flew to South Korea for a trip, which takes about 24 hours from Ireland, all in. My game plan was to line up a range of recent Oscar-winners and watch all the movies that everyone was buzzing about in one go. Upon finding my seat, I met my two seat-mates, a very sweet elderly Korean couple who took a liking to me as I was raised Catholic and they were returning from a month long pilgrimage around religious sites in Europe. The lady asked me to help her with her screen and I spent a while trying to find something for her to watch in Korean or with subtitles. Surprisingly, there was very little for her to choose from so we eventually gave up. This, however, meant that she turned to look at the screen I had turned on and began watching it with me. I was very painfully aware that a religious granny was observing me watch, “Call Me By Your Name.” I had heard enough about the movie to guess when scenes she might not approve of were coming and, as I feared their approach, I paused the film, leaving it on a still of the idyllic town in which it is set. I began fumbling around with my things as I had become aware that she was slowly falling asleep, and I waited it out for it to happen. As her eyes got heavy, she looked away from the screen and to me and smiled, “What a beautiful place,” she said in Korean, moments before she fell asleep.

The landscape of Sicily is not soft and pretty but rather striking and beautiful. It is a fascinating thing; rugged, wild, untamed, formed by volcanic processes, dotted by intriguing towns with a multitude of cultural influences marking their architectural characters, hugged by a stunning coast that boasts some of the best beaches in the world. Those seeking a sense of adventure and something new and interesting at every turn will find themselves very much at home in this part of Italy. If you want a great place to trek, hike, cycle, swim, play, and explore, a vacation rental in Sicily is just the ticket.

In particular, we would recommend setting aside some time and heading to the island of Vulcano, 25 km north of Sicily, at the southernmost tip of the eight Aeolian Islands. As the name immediately suggests, this wonderful little island in the Tyrrhenian Sea is a veritable hotspot of volcanic action with several volcanic caldera and one of the four active volcanoes in Italy that are not submarine. However, it is not it that is named after volcanoes but, rather, the other way around, the word for “volcano” coming from the name of the island, which was derived from Vulcan, who was the Roman god of fire. In fact, in both Greek and Roman mythology, the island was a forge for gods, being the labelled as the private foundry of the Olympian god Hephaestus, the patron of blacksmiths, and the chimney of Vulcan's workshop, with earthquakes and explosions of ash thought to have been evidence of the god being busy making weapons for the war god Mars and his armies.

Last April, as the famously beautiful gardens of Florence – amongst them the Boboli Gardens, Iris Garden, Rose Garden and more – came into bloom, a new kid appeared on the block in the form of the temporary Tulip Garden.

Located in the grounds of the Castello dell'Acciaiolo park, the sprawling garden was planted with around 200,000 tulips of 70 different varieties and opened to the public from the beginning of April to the 22nd. Entry cost 3 euro a person and allowed visitors to wander and pick and bring home two tulips, with additional tulips picked counted at the end and charged at a euro a piece and all of the fees going towards the maintenance of the park. Such was the success of last year's edition, that the planting of another garden of tulips of the same scale and kind was announced and begun last Autumn to be opened once more in Spring 2019.