Travel in county Florence

The narrow, arched room below the Medici Chapels Museum in Florence has some suspiciously virtuosic doodles on the walls.

Love great food, fantastic adventures, and even better company? Then it's time to get excited becauseFood & Wine, Southern Living, and Travel + Leisure have announced who's coming to the highly anticipated Food & Wine Classic in Charleston, presented by Explore Charleston. 

A technical glitch on the Air France-KLM Flying Blue website last December resulted in a mistake that temporarily made it possible to book round-trip business-class tickets from several Canadian cities to Europe for just 27,000 miles (plus taxes) on Air France and KLM.

The best part of summer cruising is that there are more cruising options than in any other season. Cruises to destinations like Alaska and Scandinavia are highly seasonal; go in the summer, or you can't cruise there at all. Even the Mediterranean is somewhat seasonal, with most cruise lines leaning heavily into summer and moving ships to warmer destinations during the cooler months.

Some of Italy’s most famous sweets originate from Sicily: cannoli, ciambella cake (a citrusy breakfast bundt made with olive oil), and torrone (a nougat confection), to name a few. The island south of the mainland, just west of the boot’s toe in the Mediterranean, has a rich history with Arabic, Spanish, and Neapolitan influences, and as with many Italian pastries, Catholic nuns can take credit for creating the region’s most iconic sweets.

As cycling enthusiasts gear up for this year's Tour de France, train travelers can embark on their own exciting journey through the heart of France. While the world's most famous bicycle race covers 3,500 kilometers over three weeks, Rail Europe offers a unique twist on the "Tour de France" experience - one that promises rich cultural encounters and comfortable travel.

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Maybe the antidote to overtourism is slow travel. Slow travel offers a different way to experience a place compared to the whirlwind tours of many vacations.

Jun 12, 2024 • 8 min read

Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa appoints Mario Maesano as Vice President of Marketing, to drive the overall development and implementation of tactical marketing initiatives across the property.

Tivoli Hotels & Resorts expands its Italian presence with the historical Tivoli Palazzo Gaddi Firenze Hotel, set to open in Florence, blending Renaissance elegance with modern luxury.

First Investors continues to invest in new lifestyle properties and restaurants.

Katy Perry is the reigning queen of the Mediterranean. Come summer, you can count on the emergence of paparazzi pics depicting the pop star smooching fiancé Orlando Bloom in Sardinia, catching dinner after a day of yachting in Dubrovnik, and jetskiing with her daughter Daisy in Saint-Tropez. It’s no wonder Perry vacations so hard, given the relentless pace of her music career. Later this week, she’ll end a six-year stint as judge on American Idol, and she wrapped up her wildly popular Las Vegas residency a few months ago. On a recent episode of Idol, she teased a new single, and her next album is expected later this year.

For a food that begins with just flour, water or sometimes eggs, there are infinite variations of pasta. So what happens when you convene a panel of five Italian cuisine experts and ask them to determine the 25 pasta dishes throughout Italy? “I’m sweating,” said Davide Palluda, the chef and owner of All’Enoteca restaurant and osteria in the Piedmont region. “This is too heavy,” he joked during the two-hour video call that I convened to debate his nominations and those of the four other panelists: Stefano Secchi, the chef and a co-owner of New York City’s Rezdôra; the Tuscany-based cookbook author Emiko Davies; the Umbria-based culinary historian Karima Moyer-Nocchi; and the food writer and novelist Roberta Corradin, who lives in Florence, Sicily and Boston. A week before our call, I’d asked each to make their own list of 10 standouts (since he was a panelist, Palluda’s restaurants were automatically excluded); after an energetic debate and several more phone calls, emails and WhatsApp messages, we whittled that list in half. The final picks appear below in unranked alphabetical order, along with the ideal wine to drink with each pasta dish, as recommended by the chosen restaurants and reviewed by Davies’s husband, the sommelier Marco Lami.

From the Renaissance splendour and symmetry of the Boboli gardens in Florence to the trickling fountains and rose gardens of the Alhambra in Spain, Europe has no shortage of “must see” gardens, but a tranquil escape from the tourist crowds they are not. Instead, we’d love to hear about your favourite “secret gardens” in continental Europe; oases of green that offer cool respite from a busy sightseeing itinerary and where you won’t be jostling for elbow room with coach parties of tourists. It could be a leafy public park, the grounds of a museum or gallery, or a botanical garden that turned into an unexpected highlight of your trip.

Renowned for its rich history and stunning architecture, Florence is a must-visit destination for art enthusiasts and history buffs alike. From Michelangelo’s David and the Duomo, one of the largest churches in the world with its famous Brunelleschi-designed dome, to fashion museums from Gucci and Ferragamo and fabulous Tuscan food (including gelato), Florence offers endless opportunities for exploration and discovery.

Don’t be deceived by the opulent Renaissance palaces, the gold jewelry shining from Ponte Vecchio’s storefronts and the high-end brands lined up on Via Tornabuoni – Florence doesn’t have to cost a fortune.

Padua, in northern Italy's Veneto region, is the site of one of the world’s greatest art treasures that should be on every art lover’s bucket list. The Scrovegni Chapel houses the extraordinary 14th-century fresco cycle by Giotto that covers all the walls and ceilings. Despite having such a masterpiece and being a lovely small city, filled with history, culture and culinary delights, Padua is far less touristy than other Italian other art cities like Florence, Rome or nearby Venice. It’s a real hidden gem. And, at just 25 miles from Venice and easy to reach from Marco Polo airport, Padua is an easy day trip or addition to a Venice itinerary.

As we get ever closer to jetting off on summer holidays, it’s sadly important to remember that not everyone you meet on your travels will be well-intentioned.

Art in hotels, both to admire and to purchase, has become a strong focus in recent years. The Fife Arms in the Scottish Highlands has an impressive art collection including a giant Louise Bourgeois spider in the courtyard, 45 Park Lane in London has regularly changing exhibitions and art tours, Claridges has its own gallery with regularly changing shows, while La Residencia in Mallorca, Spain has 33 original pieces on display by Joan Miró. The luxurious Hotel Savoy, in Florence, is another hotel that takes art seriously by creating suites for artists to stay in and through hosting regular exhibitions in its public spaces.

Nothing can ruin a vacation like being the victim of a pickpocketing scam. Throughout Europe specifically, a new study shows that there are some destinations where theft is more prevalent than others.

Food is big business in Florence, to the extent that the city council introduced a law limiting the opening of new bars and restaurants in the UNESCO-listed city center.