Category: Italy

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Review: Hotel Saturnia, Venice

Canal at sunset
Canal at sunset

The Hotel Saturnia & International, Venice, has got it going on location-wise. It’s close to St. Mark’s Square, sits on an upscale shopping street and has its own little canal dock for when you need to get a water taxi to the airport in a hurry. Added to that is a tasty and filling breakfast included in our rate and a handy little bar/restaurant that is fun to duck into on your way out or when coming home from a night on the town.

In summer, breakfast is served outside in a little garden court and there’s also a sunroof with a nice view of the city.

Set in a charming century-old building, the hotel has a variety of rooms at different prices. Ours was one of the humbler rooms and wasn’t exactly spacious. A double, it had the requisite two beds but there was only just room for them and an antique dresser, wardrobe and narrow desk. I liked the furniture, no cookie-cutter Holiday Inn here, and really enjoyed the fabulous chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The bathroom was adequate and both bathroom and bedroom had windows opening to a decorative balcony. WiFi was not lightning fast but did work and didn’t cost extra, a big deal in my book.

For the rate we paid (about $250/night through Booking.com) this was a good deal. Staff, by the way, were awesome and, in some cases, handsome to boot.

I would say for the money, this hotel can’t be beat. Just one caveat: Bring earplugs. This has got to be the creakiest hotel I ever stayed in. Floors, beds, stairs all set up a symphony of squeaks, but since I NEVER travel without industrial-strength earplugs plus comfy eye mask I slumbered peacefully through it all.

 

  • Where: 2399 S. MARCO, Venezia Tel. +39 041 520 8377
  • Website: http://www.hotelsaturnia.it/
  • Don’t miss: An aperol spritz in the La Caravelle restaurant.

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Umbrian interlude

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View from Perugia /Michelle Locke

Is there anything finer than sitting in a cafe with nothing particular to do? I’ll save you some trouble, the answer is no … unless you can do it while watching other people scurrying around madly.

That’s what I’m doing this week, spending a couple of days in Perugia where the sensational trial of Amanda Knox is wrapping up with a verdict expected soon in her appeal of an earlier conviction in the stabbing death of her roommate, Meredith Kercher.

Why am I here? Well, it’s a long story, but the short version is you need to be prepared to be flexible when you arrange to have a little holiday with a news reporter.

Perugia, which is in the Central Italy region of Umbria, is built on a hill and I believe I’ve already climbed about 5,000 stairs. Luckily, there’s a very cool system of escalators that zips you up and down some of the main thoroughfares with the greatest of ease. One series of escalators takes you through the remains of Rocca Paolina, once a powerful fortress five levels high and still impressive with its thick stone walls. I’ve ridden up and down a few times, just like a 5-year-old playing on the moving staircase in Macy’s.

Reporters here waiting for the verdict in the Knox case don’t seem to be having so much fun. I see them bustling around town, phones to their ears, or sitting in little bunches in cafes sipping espressos.

Inspired by all that energy I did a little investigative reporting of my own, checking out the local wines at sidewalk cafes. I found one I liked a lot called grechetto, a grape variety commonly grown in Umbria that produces a beautiful, pale gold wine. The aroma was a little bit of fruit salad and honey and the taste continued that theme with the addition of some canteloupe.

Nothing makes me happier than discovering a new white wine, so score a scoop for me. After all, my motto has always been “if it’s news to me, it’s news.”

Cheers.

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Julius Caesar, late bloomer

 

When in Rome, it’s fun to tune into ancient history. After all, there are picturesque ruins at every turn, not to mention the layers of unexcavated history that lie beneath the most pedestrian buildings.

For my last morning in Rome, I took a walk past the remains of the gladiators’ locker rooms. I confess I’m more likely to conjure up Russell Crowe than the real deal, but, still, it was a kick to imagine the tumbledown walls ringing with the sound of whatever it is non-Hollywood gladiators did.

Across the street was the Colosseum, so iconic that you have to keep reminding yourself it’s quite real. It helped to take a look at the good seats where the cream of Roman society would watch the bloody doings on the arena floor. It seems you have your 50-yard-line crowd and the nosebleed set in every era.

And then then there is the Forum, where a flower-covered boulder marks the death of Julius Caesar. The killing did not take place here, but this is where an altar was erected after the assassination,

Getting wreaths millenia after your death _ not a bad legacy.

One of my favorite things about Caesar is he was 51 when he crossed the Rubicon. This was a (not very deep) river outside Rome where generals had to disband their armies because crossing with troops was tantamount to declaring war on the sitting government. Caesar made the move as part of a standoff with his former ally Pompey. He emerged the victor and went on to a number of accomplishments including replacing the lunar-based calendar with the Egyptian version based on the sun and adding the leap year. (Now we give him a shout-out every July.)

Unfortunately, everything went south on March 15, 44 BC, but, still, I like to think of Caesar as the patron saint of late-bloomers, proof that as long as you’ve got the will there is a way.

I know what you’re thinking. History is nice and all, but what wine pairs well with a Roman legend? That would be Rubicon, of course, the flagship wine bottled by Francis Ford Coppola. Not only is there the name tie-in, but the wine’s release date each year is the Ides of March.

Like Caesar, and all the middle-aged heroes, this wine ages well.

Cheers, maturely.

 

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Seeing the Colosseum

Photo by Amanda Ho
Photo by Amanda Ho

For those of you who have vivid images of Emperor Nero laughing maniacally as lions snacked on Christians in the Colosseum, I have bad news.

Nero, it turns out, died before the Colosseum was built in the First Century. In fact, in his day the site of the famous amphitheater was a lake.

This was something of a disappointment to me, since my education on all things Roman mainly comes from the apparently not-always reliable Hollywood School of History. However, I am happy to say the Colosseum is so cool that neither my dashed dreams nor the fact that I shared the visit with about a billion other sightseers dimmed the experience.

I think it may be the sheer scale of the building, which was capable of seating 50,000. Or it might be all the interesting innovations, like staircases dedicated to certain levels to make for quick exits and entrances. People streamed out so fast the passages for the 76 regular entrance arches were called vomitaria. A little gross, sure, but interesting.

As in today’s sports arenas, the best seats were at field level and there’s a small section of marble -covered bleachers in the prime viewing area that were reserved for people so special they had their names engraved on the marble. Luxury boxes, Empire style.

I came away feeling so fired up about spectatorship I almost want to take in an Oakland Raiders’ game this fall. The cheers of the crowd, the smell of the fried meat products, it could be fun.

Of course, I wouldn’t advise going anywhere near the rabid fan section known as the “Black Hole.”
Not even Nero would have been fool enough to fiddle around with those folks.

Cheers.