Villa Mercede is a bit different to many of the hotels we choose to stay in on our travels. Personal choice, but we prefer quirky, boutique style (although not those with silly prices), old, traditional etc to modern and quite functional. Which is what Villa Mercede,...
When we were in Italy, last year, we had an awful experience with a hotel in the beautiful Calabrian town of Tropea. We’d booked into Hotel Valemare for four nights, but it was so terrible, we left the next morning, not knowing if we’d get a refund*. We’d heard of...
On our travels through Italy last year, we made the decision to explore the eastern coast of Sicily and having done some online research, decided that Ortigia (in the region of Syracuse), sounded like our kind of place. We took the car ferry from Reggio Calabria to...
Trapani (or Birgi Airport, located about 19 km south of the city) is accessible by Ryanair from the UK. Once in Trapani, the Egadi Islands – Favignana, Marettimo and Levanzo – to the west, are as easily accessible by ferry. We chose to spend six days on Favignana –...
On our travels in Italy last year, we were so lucky to find some real off-the-beaten-track places. We’d hired a car and had no real plan, apart from having a couple of weeks to get from Rome to Ortigia in Sicily on the first part of the trip. So, with trusty road map...
In my book, a “cool” place to stay doesn’t need to be hip and trendy and cutting edge. It just needs to be somewhere that isn’t bog-standard. And this place we stumbled upon – quite literally – in Castellabate, Campania is very cool, if like us, you like things that...
Of all of the places we visited recently, Venice has to be one of the most memorable. We arrived on a cold, misty afternoon and were prepared for the weather to stay this way as we’d been under thick cloud all the way from Rimini. The lagoon, on either side of the...
Rimini – Hotel DuoMo… a pretty spectacular find of a hotel, right in the heart of Rimini. Surrounded by historical buildings and vaulted, arched walkways, sits the very striking Hotel DuoMo – almost brash compared to its neighbours, but somehow it fits. Bold, cherry...
The amazing Matera, in the region of Basilicata, in southern Italy, is going to have a blog post all of its own because it is quite simply, one the most incredible places we visited recently. This blog however, is all about Hotel Basiliani – a real modern jaw dropper,...
We hit lucky when we were staying in Ortigia, Siciliy – a friend tipped us off about a Buskers’ Festival which was happening in the inland town of Ragusa, and so with very little knowledge about it, other than it was happening, we hit the road. The journey over to...