When I was in Italy, I saw lots of artists creating beautiful sidewalk art like this man drawing Girl With a Pearl Earring in Siena. They seemed to be enjoying their endeavors and appeared to be collecting a decent amount of money. This got me wondering, why don’t they do this in New York City?

If you’re planning a trip to Venice, you’re probably thinking that you want to take a ride in gondola. Then you get there and you find out that it’s going to cost you a minimum of €80. You start second-guessing your plan, thinking that perhaps it’s not absolutely essential that you participate in this time-honored […]

We decided to splurge on our hotel in Rome, choosing the beautiful historic Hotel Eden, which we got at a pretty good rate from Hotels.com. We really enjoyed staying there but, like many fancy hotels, Internet access wasn’t free. Nope, it was €25 a day plus tax. We’re somewhat addicted to the Internet — and […]

It’s a commonly held conviction that Venice becomes magical at nighttime. Now, this Italian engineering marvel is quite lovely during the daytime too — you know, thanks to those canals and colorful architecture and all that. So what makes it even more special in the dark? First of all, it’s not as hot at night […]

Our first stop in Italy was Venice. We were there for about 48 hours (Monday to Wednesday) and didn't have one really good meal. This is partly because Venice is completely overrun with touristy restaurants where they show pictures of the food on the menu, partly because the streets of Venice are so confusing that […]

(photo of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome by Angela Nickerson) Aside from being a master of plot and suspense, author Dan Brown also excels at giving his readers wanderlust. It's difficult to read (or watch) The Da Vinci Code and not feel the urge to run off to Paris, London and Scotland to save vital […]