As the summer travel season comes to a close, one airline is giving travelers a reason to start planning next summer's vacation. Delta Air Lines announced it will be operating its largest trans-Atlantic flight schedule ever, debuting just in time for summer 2024. The airline will be adding new destinations including Naples and bringing back service to Shannon, Ireland. According to Delta, next summer it will operate 260 weekly flights to 18 countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). This includes a new flight from JFK to Munich three times a week that will start on April 9, 2024, and a daily nonstop flight to Shannon, Ireland that will begin on May 23, 2024. The carrier will expand its existing service to Italy — it already flies to Milan, Venice, and Rome — with a new daily service to Naples. It will also resume service between Atlanta and Zurich, Switzerland, four times a week, which had originally been cut in 2019.
At every turn Etna loomed, smoke hovering above the crater: a family rail adventure from the UK to Sicily
11.09.2023 - 09:07 / theguardian.com
It took the second thud to rouse me. Worried I’d slept through it, I slid up the blind to find our train pulling into the port city of Villa San Giovanni in Calabria, Italy. Not quite 6am, the last of the night’s sky was taking leave: navy clouds pulled apart before my eyes, a single neon-pink patch igniting the ridgeline of the Peloritani mountains in north-east Sicily.
As I watched the waters of the Messina Strait turn silver in the dawn light, the train jerked and we began to roll the way we’d come. Shunted back and forth, I realised the carriages were uncoupling: this was the moment I’d waited years to witness. Little legs in pink pyjamas appeared on the ladder and my five-year-old daughter climbed down from her berth. “Are we riding on the ferry yet?”
Our journey had begun a few days earlier with a Eurostar from London to Paris, followed by the night train to Nice. A series of regional trains took us from there to Venice, where we caught another sleeper to Rome. It was here that our adventure really kicked off. The 11pm InterCity Notte service from Roma Termini takes just under 13 hours to reach Palermo, first winding down the long mainland, then crossing the Strait of Messina on a ferry.
For the first hour, we’d knelt at the window watching the outskirts of the capital fall away. As factory chimneys twinkled through the darkness, we’d fallen asleep in the privacy of our two-person vagone letto, waking for the moment when the train’s carriages were uncoupled and rolled side by side on to a ferry for the 20-minute crossing. Most passengers stayed asleep in their compartments, but not us. Zipping jackets over pyjamas, we jumped down from the train and ventured up to the deck, to enjoy a slap of salty air, the cries of circling gulls and the surreal sight of our carriages locked into place.
We were here for a week-long family tour of Sicily by train – mainly for the food. I was travelling with my five-year old, meeting her dad and three-year-old sister in Palermo before travelling to Catania, then up to the small town of Linguaglossa on the edge of Mount Etna, using the little-known narrow-gauge railway line. I had heard tales of Sicily’s awful trains – delayed, old, infrequent, slow – so wondered how the trip would pan out.
On the other side of the strait, with the train smoothly back on track, we munched through the complimentary breakfast of croissants and Grisbi chocolate biscuits, watching wisteria-covered houses flit past above beaches of grey sand.
On the horizon, the Aeolian islands just caught my eye as the Tyrrhenian Sea flashed teal between buildings, before the train took a wide arc above a curl of golden sand and surf. Lemon groves exploded trackside and beach palms braced against the
Lake Como’s Largest Spa Is A Wellness Sanctuary Away From The Crowds
While travelling for wellness feels like a modern phenomenon, the Romans were known to travel to thermal baths as early as the 2nd century BC. The earliest spas—the Latin word for which, ‘salus per aquam,’ translates to ‘health from water’—were considered integral to a healthy life. Roman legionaries would sooth their sore muscles in natural spring water and thermal treatments were prescribed to relieve physical ailments. Centuries later and Italy continues to take their spas seriously.
These are the best hotels in the world for 2023 and 21 of them are in Europe
As summer holidays come to an end, 50 Best has compiled its list of the World’s 50 Best Hotels in 2023.
In the tracks of the Orient Express: my train ride from London to Istanbul
One of the fruits of getting on a train is that it makes me want to chat. So instead of gazing at Kent as we proceed to Paris from London, I talk to my neighbour. Martha grew up in San Francisco, studied in Oregon, and puts syrup on everything. When we part ways on the concourse of Gare du Nord – she to lunch with a friend from Wisconsin, me to amble around before continuing towards Turkey – she says the best things about the US are Taylor Swift and meatloaf. It’s good to talk.
I took a road trip through Italy and the rest stops left American ones in the dust
Whenever I go on a road trip, I make it my goal to stop as few times as possible.
The best ways to travel around in the US
Hitting the open road is a quintessentially American pursuit, romanticized by the likes of Kerouac, Steinbeck and, well, Barbie.
From a boozer to the Norfolk Broads: a riverside walk to The Ship, Reedham
Berney Arms is one of England’s most remote railway stations. You can only get to this stretch of the Norfolk Broads by train, boat or a long walk. It’s 25 minutes’ train ride from Norwich, but only two trains stop most days, and I’ve never seen anyone else getting off. Outside the train window, a roe deer steps delicately through green marshes and an egret stands poised by the water. The strange wild beauty is what keeps me coming back. This time I’m arriving with my husband on the 7.36am train from Norwich to walk along the River Yare to Reedham. We head through into the first carriage, the only one that fits next to the tiny station.
Onboard the Crystal Symphony During Its Return to Service
Peering out of my suite at Hilton Imperial Dubrovnik, a 19th-century hotel with views of the walled Old Town and the shimmering Adriatic just beyond, it was hard to imagine being thrilled to leave.
Europe Is Testing The World’s First Digital Passport In Finland
For the first time, a nation is allowing travelers to cross its border with a digital passport on their smartphone instead of a physical passport. While the trial is happening in Finland, the European Union wants at least 80% of citizens in the 27-country bloc to be using a digital ID by 2030.
The Best Things to Do in Monaco, the French Riviera's Bell Epoque Gem
Monaco’s high season is bookended by two of the French Riviera’s ritziest events: the Monaco Grand Prix and the Monaco Yacht Show. Super yachts and fast cars are two of the principality’s defining features, but there’s much more to Monaco than you’d expect from the world’s second-smallest state, which is about the same size as Central Park.
‘Keep it in your heart’: You could be arrested for taking sand from the beach on this Italian island
A man has been arrested after stealing a huge amount of pebbles from a protected Sardinian beach.
JetBlue's 1st Amsterdam flight is in the books; what it was like on the inaugural
Editors' note: JetBlue provided TPG with a free one-way business-class ticket for the inaugural Paris route. All opinions expressed here are the author's alone and were not subject to review by JetBlue.