Starting in January, Venice will oblige day-trippers to make reservations and pay a fee to visit the historic lagoon city, in a bid to better manage visitors who often far outnumber residents in the historic center, clogging narrow streets and heavily-used foot bridges crossing the canals. Venice officials on Friday unveiled new rules for day-trippers, which go into effect on Jan. 16, 2023. Tourists who choose not to stay overnight in hotels or other lodgings will have to sign up online for the day they plan to come and pay a fee. These range from 3 to 10 euros ($3.15 to $10.50) per person, depending on advance booking and whether it’s peak season or the city is very crowded. FILE PHOTO: A tourist takes a selfie in St. Mark's Square in Venice, Italy, Nov. 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Luca...
Read MoreTag: Italy
The first UNWTO Global Youth Tourism Summit will bring more than 130 young people from 60 countries to Sorrento, Italy, next week, giving them a unique platform to play a leading role in the future of the sector. The event, first of its kind, is organized by UNWTO and hosted in Italy in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and the National Tourism Agency (ENIT). It will unite global youth aged between 12 and 18 with leaders from across the sector, including politicians and key figures from the worlds of sport, gastronomy, entertainment and innovation. The Summit has received the medal of the President of the Republic of Italy and patronage of the Department of Youth Policies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Po...
Read More# String of tremors in 2016 killed 300, devastated cultural sites# Thousands of art works damaged when churches collapsed# Most damaged art work was in Marche and Umbria regions# Umbria has purpose-built emergency centre to receive damaged art# Many pieces may never return to original sites if not rebuilt At the opening of a new museum in the picturesque Italian town of San Severino Marche, the guests of honour did not dress up. They were firemen in gear worn when they rescued artworks damaged in earthquakes in 2016 and now restored and on display. Archbishop Francesco Massera points to a fresco at a new museum for art recovered and restored from churches damaged in a series of earthquakes in central Italy in 2016, in San Severino Marche, Italy June 11, 2016. REUTERS/Philip Pullella...
Read MoreItaly has been so successful in recovering ancient artworks and artifacts that were illegally exported from the country it has created a museum for them. The Museum of Rescued Art was inaugurated Wednesday in a cavernous structure that is part of Rome’s ancient Baths of Diocletian. The Octagonal Hall exhibition space was designed to showcase Italy’s efforts, through patient diplomacy and court challenges, to get valuable antiquities repatriated, often after decades in foreign museums or private collections. Exhibits in the new museum will change every few months as the objects on display return to what experts consider their territory of origin, many of them places that were part of ancient Etruscan or Magna Grecia civilizations in central or southern Italy. Votive terracotta hea...
Read MoreVenice’s Jewish ghetto is considered the first in Europe and one of the first in the world, and a new effort is underway to preserve its 16th-century synagogues for the Jews who have remained and tourists who pass through. For nearly two years, restorers have been peeling away paint and discovering the original foundations of three of the ghetto’s synagogues, which are considered the only Renaissance synagogues still in use, art historian David Landau said. Interiors of the 1528 Great German Schola Synagogue, of Ashkenazi rite, are seen in this picture taken in Venice, northern Italy, Wednesday, June 1, 2022. The Great German Schola is the first synagogue of the Venice Ghetto. (AP Photo/Chris Warde-Jones) Landau is spearheading the fundraising effort to restore the synagogues and...
Read MoreThousands of people revelled in the start of the annual Carnival celebrations in Venice on Saturday, marking a slow return to normality after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the two previous editions. The 2020 Venice Carnival, which usually draws tourists from around the world, was curtailed when the pandemic broke out in Italy in February that year and then cancelled the following year as the government sought to contain infections. Revellers wear carnival costumes to celebrate the Venice Carnival, in Venice, Italy, February 12, 2022. REUTERS/Manuel Silvestri "This is the Carnival of hope," said Venice resident Cristian Scalise. "COVID is ending and we hope to return to our life as always." Italy's rate of new COVID infections and hospitalisations has been gradually declining in re...
Read MoreEster Percossi can still hear the screams, feel the cold and see the terror in people's eyes. She is one of the survivors of the shipwreck of the Costa Concordia, the luxury cruise liner that capsized after hitting rocks just off the coast of the small Italian island of Giglio on Jan. 13, 2012, killing 32 people in one of Europe's worst maritime disasters. Percossi and other survivors have returned to the island to pay tribute to the dead and again thank the islanders who, in the dark and dead of winter, helped 4,200 crew and passengers - more than six times the number of winter residents that night. A general view of a lighthouse early in the morning on a day of the tenth anniversary of the Costa Concordia shipwreck that killed 32 people after it capsized and sank off shore, at ...
Read MoreFinding rewrites the history, geography, and evolution of the ancient Mediterranean area Italy is not exactly renown for dinosaurs. In comparison to its excellent artistic and archaeological heritage, dinosaur fossils are very rare. Not surprisingly, the discovery of the first isolated remains from these animals, in the early 1990s, generated quite an excitement, but were shortly after considered nothing more than an exception to a general rule. During the reign of dinosaurs, between 230 and 66 million years ago, the ancient Mediterranean area would have been hard to map, formed by countless small islands far from all major mainlands – Europe, Africa, and Asia – unsuitable to sustain large animals like the dinosaurs. Or so we believed. Antonio - Fossil and a sculpture by Enrico Rizz...
Read MoreThe Three Wise Men have something extra to carry along with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh when they travel to visit Baby Jesus this year: their COVID-19 health pass. Craftsmen along San Gregorio Armeno street in the historical centre of Naples, Italy, are famous for using art to adapt their nativity scenes to the times they are living in. Christmas nativity figurines are pictured holding a COVID-19 health pass, in Naples, Italy November 3, 2021. REUTERS/Ciro De Luca "Last year was the year of the masks, so the figurines of Mary, Joseph and the Three Wise Men were wearing masks ... This year it seemed like the right thing to keep following this direction," said craftsman Marco Ferrigno. The Green Pass, which shows someone has received at least one vaccine dose, tested n...
Read MoreGroup continues to expand its European bouquet, many more to come Anantara Hotels, Resorts & Spas has added Anantara Palazzo Naiadi Rome Hotel to its portfolio, marking the brand’s debut in Italy. The addition of this historic property, which is a member of The Leading Hotels of the World, heralds the continued growth of Anantara’s European footprint. Skyline Rome Immersed in the splendour of ancient Rome, Anantara Palazzo Naiadi Rome sits at the heart of Piazza della Repubblica and has a fascinating architectural history with original elements commissioned by Pope Clement XI for the Vatican in 1705. The building is suspended over the ancient Diocletian Thermal Baths, whose excavated foundations, pools and mosaics can be seen through the lower ground floor. The hotel is also ...
Read More