Sophia Loren travel tips

Few Italian cities can compare with Naples. No wonder neighboring Pozzuoli has long been overshadowed by its bombastic, culture-drenched bigger sibling. 

“Ted Lasso” star Hannah Waddingham has been named the godmother of Princess Cruises’ newest ship, Sun Princess. The award-winning British actress and singer will christen the ship during an official naming ceremony in Barcelona on April 23.

For those looking to visit Sicily and experience it in a new way, a good place to start is the Villa Igiea in Palermo. A cherished landmark, the villa is testament to a great Italian dynasty, theFlorios, who were widely chronicled in Europe for both their business acumen and social prowess, as the Astors and Vanderbilts were in the U.S., during the Belle Epoque. Designed in neo-Gothic and Art Nouveau styles, Villa Igiea was purchased by the Florios to be used as a health retreat for an ailing daughter. Instead they turned it into a hotel, which would come to be known for a glittering guest list that included kings and emperors and film-world royalty like Roberto Rossellini and Sophia Loren. In 2019, Rocco Forte Hotels purchased the historic property and initiated a multi-year refurbishment overseen by Olga Polizzi, director of design and deputy chairman of RFH.

Cinematic Naples lives to eat, but there is far more to this southern Italian city than scoffing pizza margherita at Da Michele like Julia Roberts did in the 2010 movie Eat Pray Love, or frequenting the pizzeria where Sophia Loren flipped ’n fried dough on screen in the 1950s.

Belgrade’s foundations stand above a network of prehistoric caves — some of the scattered shells found within them date back up to eight million years. These cavernous spaces have housed a Roman aqueduct system and  military tunnels; more recently, they served as Second World War bunkers for Nazi occupiers. Enter the network from Tasmajdan Park and explore a section used by German soldiers escaping Belgrade’s liberation in 1944.

It was the shower for me. A shower convinced me that more luxury fashion brands should explore expansions into hotels and resorts. This particular shower was in my suite at the Bulgari Hotel Paris, one of the legendary Italian brand’s newer properties opened in December of 2021. For some reason, a lot of luxury resorts and hotels like to tout “rainfall” showers as a feature of their rooms, but for the most part, and in the hundreds of properties I’ve visited, such “rainfall” showers usually feel like a downpour let down. But not at the Bulgari Hotel Paris: this shower was transformative, the droplets so fine yet plentiful and luxuriously soft that I knew I had never felt real rain in actual nature like THIS.

Pick Pula Croatia for your next city break. It's a natural choice after Dubrovnik and Split. It's laidback and cosmopolitan. Home to some impressive Roman ruins. And it retains a refreshing sense of authenticity. The compact historic centre is as picturesque as any in Croatia. But its shipyard's giant cranes indicate a working city.

The world is full of beautiful places – both natural and manmade – and even the most avid globetrotters can't hope to exhaust them all. But some simply love the camera more than others. Here, our Senior Picture Editor, Phoebe Lowndes, picks a snapshot of the most photogenic places on Earth, with more stunning, alternative destinations highlighted in our month by month, where to go when guide. Get your camera at the ready…