When should you go to Venice?

VeniceHotel.org offers an interesting online service: the crowd forecast. If you plan to visit Venice and your dates are flexible, then it's best to choose a time when the city is least crowded. The rooms cost less; there are shorter queues for the museums; and the city will be more enjoyable. The chart only forecasts the crowd for the next 20 days.

How to say Happy Holidays in Italian

How can you say 'Happy Holidays' in Italian? Here are a few words that are commonly used this time around:

Merry Christmas - Buon Natale
Happy Holidays - Buone Feste
Happy New Year - Buon Anno
New Year's eve - Capodanno
Best wishes for 2008 - I migliori auguri per il 2008
Filled with joy and peace - Pieno di gioia e serenita'

Our editorial staff Francesca and Paolo together with our associate podcaster Silvia, 7 (and future talent Alessio, 4) augurano a tutti voi Buone Feste!

Winter in Friuli Venezia Giulia (video)

If you listened to my podcast about Friuli Venezia Giulia, you may already know that this region offers a variety of opportunities to travelers who are ready to discover new itineraries beyond the classic Italy destinations.

This video, courtesy of the Agenzia Turismo Friuli Venezia Giulia, shows some of the activities that Friuli offers to its guests who prefer to visit this area in Winter time.

- Can't see the video? Watch it from YouTube
- iPod version (MP4 - 24Mb)
- Zune version (WMV - 18Mb)

Beppe Grillo

Beppe Grillo is one of the most popular Italian comedians. His shows focus on themes like political and corporate corruption, energy usage, finance, technology and freedom of speech, all topics that are very sensitive to Italian citizens.
If you are interested in taking a peek at the major 'pain points' of Italy, then check out Beppe's blog. According to Technorati, it's the #1 blog in Italy and #10 blog in all the blogsphere.
The New York Time has featured him today on their home page with a very educational video that summarizes it all:
Beppe Grillo: The Comic Who Shook Italy.

New Search feature (finally) available

Navigating through content on a blog is not easy. The chronological nature of postings suggests to follow new topics as they get published. But as the number of postings grow, this method becomes impractical. Tags (e.g. food, trains, lifestyle, etc.) may help some too.

Search is the best solution. That's why we implemented a new Search box on this blog. It makes your life easier to find what you need among the 100+ currently available and future postings. And you can extend your search on a number of other hand-picked Italy travel sites that we consider authoritative.

A side benefit for us is also learning what are the most popular searches. This will help us figuring out possible new topics to cover. E.g. in the past few days some of the most popular searches have been Italian food, hand gestures, goodbye in Italian and chinotto.

Please tell us if you know of any useful Italy travel site that we should add to our extended Search network.

Coffee shops and slot machines

I just returned from a two-weeks vacation in Italy where I collected plenty of new material for future podcasts and blog postings.
One of the emerging trends that I've been witnessing is the proliferation of slot machines (called New Slots) in Italian coffee shops (Bars).
Gambling is a heavily regulated activity in Italy. State laws have severely constrained the number of casinos on the territory. Nevertheless, many Italians keep fueling the flourishing business of state-run bingos and instant scratch games, such as Totocalcio, Gratta e Vinci, Enalotto and more.
The New Slots are an affordable way to pursue this thrill on a budget. The maximum bet is Euro 1 and you can cash out up to Euro 50 (slated to double next year to Euro 100). The chances to win are also extremely low. Overall, a bad deal across the board even if you feel homesick of your recent trip to Vegas.