Archive for 'Islands'

One of the best things about visiting Italy is the difference in the pace of life. Things tend to be a little more relaxed and laid-back than in other parts of the world and, if you're willing to embrace this, it makes for the perfect atmosphere to have a perfectly revitalising holiday where you forget all your worries and enjoy yourself.

Ignore the fact that the grocery store and post office in the town have just closed for three hours at lunch and forget about emails and the office for the duration of your stay in Italy.

Instead, choose one of the beautiful spa towns around the country and soak in natural hot springs, go for a massage and a facial – there is no better way to fully experience the relaxation that can only be found in Italy.

Panarea is an island off the coast of Sicily that is both the smallest and most fashionable of the Aeolian islands. It is a place that attracts celebrities and jet-setters and offers a slice of paradise and a real taste of luxury.

With no cars on the island, crystal blue seas, white villages, soft sandy beaches and bright blooming bougainvillea, iconic hotels and bars, yachts filling the tiny harbour and chic visitors and inhabitants abounding, it is an incredibly picturesque island that paints an image of a very different lifestyle to the one that most of us are familiar with.

To become a fellow resident of the princess that lives on the island or have a holiday home there, is a long and laborious process that requires being rich, famous, powerful and, most importantly, charming. However, it is possible to visit on day trips as a guest once you have found a vacation rental in Sicily.

Rabbit Beach, in Sicily, is the best beach in the world.

This is certainly true if you trust what was said by the voters and real-life travellers and normal tourists of travel website TripAdvisor in 2013. In fact, though it doesn't win every year, the beach is consistently voted by the website's users as one of the best beaches in the world. Visitors note its “crystal clear” water and “soft sand” as some of the main selling points and others note that it is “hard to believe you are not somewhere tropical”.

Located on the island of Lampedusa, next to the tiny Isola dei Conigli (or “Rabbit Island”), Rabbit Beach is set in the Mediterranean Sea and paints an exceptionally beautiful picture with the white sands being lapped by the azure water. If this sounds like your cup of tea (and why wouldn't it), just find a vacation rental in Sicily and pay a visit to this famous beach.

The Island of Garda – also known as the Isola del Garda, Isola di Garda or Isola Borghese – is the largest island on Lake Garda. It has been inhabited for thousands of years, going back to Roman times. After being used by pirates for years, it came under the control of the monks of St Zeno of Verona. It then shifted hands many times over the years. The current villa, the Villa Borghese-Cavazza, which occupies the island was built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is occupied by the Cavazza Counts who inherited the island in 1927 and still live there today.

Villa Jovis is a site on Capri at the end of the Viale Amedeo Maiuri which houses the ruins of a villa from the first century B.C. which is attributed to the Roman Emperor, Tiberius. Perched on a cliff-top, it now provides visitors with astounding views but once afforded its occupants both privacy and security. Once the largest and most sumptuous of the twelve Roman villas on the island, it is now reduced to ruins, though a considerable percentage still survives. In fact, the amount of survival from the original complex means that the visitor centre has reliable reproductions of what it might have looked like.