10 things that annoy us about hotels #7 Power to the people!

If we go out to dinner one more time leaving laptops, cameras, phones, and batteries supposedly charging, only to find that the power goes off five seconds after we leave the room, we’re going to collectively scream. We don’t have a problem with the lights and the TV going off, but these days, surely just about everyone has at least a couple of devices that might need charging while they’re out. We’ve discovered recently that many ‘credit card’ style room keys even have microchips in them so that we can’t just insert any card in the slot to keep the power on (we have quite a collection of them, you see). Even getting two cards from reception and leaving one in when we go out has also failed recently because housekeeping has come in and turned down the bed anyway, removing our card on the way out – which didn’t do much for our hard drive backups that were underway! And yes, we did have the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door…
We recently stayed at the Ripa Hotel, Rome, a property boasting a contemporary design and decent amount of technology (and endearing old-fashioned extras such as champagne on ice!), that somehow still gets it right, so we asked General Manager, Arianna Roscioli, to respond: "One of the reasons guests don't have problems with doors and with the power at the Ripa is because we still use normal keys and we have a jack to turn on the power. We are not so hi-tech, yet we still provide guests with the latest technology, in-room internet access, a flat screen television, and a CD player. Personally, I think we should all try not to be so dependent on digital gadgets when travelling. I have three children from 9 to 18 and when we travel now we need a trolley just for all our cameras, laptops, ipod stations and cell phones. I guess that trying to save on utility expenses is important for any hotel in the world as well as being good for the planet, but I understand that some hotels are just a bit too much, and the rooms are more like a golden jail than a nice place to live and stay. I also don't like the electronic key system too much because it's not good for the health. I like to suggest that all travellers travel with a black tourmaline crystal to put near their laptop to neutralize the effects of electromagnetic radiation."

Our latest travel writing: in print and online

Aside from our new Lonely Planet Syria and Lebanon guidebook hitting the shelves, we had a couple of articles appear on the web recently. Check out our "Off the beach in Crete" piece on the NineMSN Travel website. Yes, it is a Greek Island and it is summer, but there is life beyond the beach resorts and this is one island where we strongly believe that getting off the beaten track is more rewarding than staying on the well-trodden sand. Likewise, avoiding the throngs of tourists and thousands of groups that stream through Rome's Vatican Museums each day by doing a private after-hours tour is the only way I'd recommend you visit the museums and Sistine Chapel, having now done it both ways. Terry and I road-tested one of the private tours offered by Viator when we were in Rome a few months ago (as you know, we don't recommend or write about anything we haven't tried ourselves), and this is definitely the way to do it. You can read why I think so in my post for Viator, Why Lara loved her after-hours Vatican tour (sorry, not a very original title, I know), and also here in my own post. A few readers have asked where they can buy our books... well, if you don't have a good travel bookshop near you (or any bookshop for that matter, but travel bookshops are much more fun, aren't they?), you can always buy our guidebooks online from Amazon.com via my Cool Travel Guide Shop where I've compiled our titles. I haven't updated it in a while, so a couple of titles are missing, but I promise to do so soon. You can also go straight to Amazon or other online bookshops, but obviously if you buy a book here I get a little commission. The photo? A young Italian couple kissing among the columns at St. Peters, Rome.

A Tale of Three Tastings in Rome: Tasting #3 Ristorante Il Pagliaccio

By Terry Carter*
Our third memorable meal turned out to be at Michelin-starred Ristorante Il Pagliaccio. We had wanted to eat here for a while, having heard great things about the chef and glowing recommendations about the inventiveness of the menu of Anthony Genovese. Visiting for lunch, we were the only patrons there, yet we hadn't been able to get a table for two nights. Manager Daniele Montano explained that they open for lunch to keep people like us happy (he guessed we were ‘food tourists’), as well as the businessmen and politicians out to impress. To be honest, there were so many highlights to this meal it’s hard to pick out some favorites. The gnocchi with oysters and caviar was sublime. And we had the best prepared pigeon, served with peas, pea puree and mushrooms, that we'd ever had in our lives. The wines were perfectly matched and the service was warm and generous. Il Pagliaccio might translate to the weeping clown, but this meal made us weep tears of delight. Although we were a little melancholy for more after we left…

Great meals have a flow about them and great restaurants exude a certain confidence. The wines match the food well, the waiting staff work seamlessly together, and the kitchen brings out fresh ingredients cooked with care and often plenty of flair. But great meals don’t have to be as intricate and delicate as dining at Il Pagliaccio where a new wine and new taste sensations were presented with every course. They can be as simple and rustic as La Taverna dei Fori Imperiali, or more classical and refined like L'Arcangelo. When we go out to eat we’re happy with any of these three types of experiences. And when a meal clicks, it makes all the ones that don’t feel that way seem like wasted opportunities - something that really irks us when we’re working on a guidebook and blow a tonne of money on a restaurant that we ultimately can’t recommend. But while we are researching stories, to have three memorable meals in just as many days, with such a gamut of experiences, is one of the pure joys of travelling. Don’t you think? It’s one of the reasons we do what we do!

Terry Carter* is my partner and co-author.

A Tale of Three Tastings in Rome: Tasting #2 La Taverna dei Fori Imperiali

By Terry Carter*
La Taverna dei Fori Imperiali** was casually recommended to us by our guide, Petulia, from Context while we were on our way to visit some bespoke shops, and it was another memorable stop. A modest, old-fashioned trattoria, we were instantly taken with the casual nature of the staff. ‘Dad’, who appears to do the cooking, walked through the restaurant wearing the kind of apron that generally makes the rest of the family giggle, but the food was delicious, as was the wine selection. We ordered off-menu as this generally translates to the ‘specials’. In good Italian restaurants ‘specials’ don’t mean the stuff from the back of the walk-in refrigerator that’s well past its prime, it means the dishes that are made from what was bought fresh from the market that day. We had a beautiful freshly-made caponata (a 'salad' comprised of cooked eggplant, olives, pine nuts, celery, more than a little sugar, vinegar and olive oil, with some wonderful buffalo mozzarella on the side), followed by some handmade pastas, of which a veal ragout with late-season truffles was an aromatic delight. Even a neighbouring table’s comments*** that they had to keep drinking wine to "drown out the garlic taste" of the same dish* couldn’t deter us from fighting over whether our ‘half-half’**** rule applied.

* Photographer-writer Terry Carter is my husband and co-author
** at Via Madonna dei Monte 16
*** Notes for our neighbouring table (while desperately not trying to sound like a food snob): it was truffle, not garlic that was giving off the strong aroma (costs much more, smells very different); ‘al-dente’ means ‘with bite’, this is how pasta is cooked, although the ‘bite’ varies depending whether the pasta is secca (dried) or fresca (fresh); and ‘Dante’ was a writer, so asking if a pasta is ‘chewy’ because it’s cooked ‘Dante’ is like asking to be sent to the Inferno.
**** our ‘half-half’ rule is what we use when we have two dishes we both really want to try. We eat half and then swap plates. Conditions apply and there is often a little cheating. As when one person is faking that their dish is ‘just OK’, but is secretly having a food orgasm. This is generally easily discovered by noting the facial expressions of the cheating diner.

A Tale of Three Tastings in Rome

By Terry Carter*
Given that we were not on the travel guidebook treadmill when we were in Rome recently (we were researching stories for travel magazines instead), we easily fell back into the pattern that we used to follow when we didn’t write restaurant reviews for a living. We decided to do what we love to do – eat at whatever restaurant takes our fancy rather than what fulfills editorial desires. (More on that in another post coming soon.) Our friends and people we meet on the road think that this means we’d drop into Michelin star establishments for breakfast. But that’s not the case. Dining at Michelin-starred restaurants can be stifling, stiff and often disappointing experiences (more on that soon also). We love to mix it up and we’re just as happy with a bowl of great pasta as we are with a tian of whatever served with an ingredient that I’d need to look up in a food dictionary and topped with foam of cloud essence. You get the idea… So, here are our three favorite restaurants in Rome...

* Travel writer-photographer Terry Carter is my husband and co-author.

A Tale of Three Tastings in Rome: Tasting #1 L'Arcangelo

By Terry Carter*
On our first day in Rome we dumped our bags and quickly headed out to lunch at L'Arcangelo, a classically understated yet elegant ristorante, where the quietly charming owner-sommelier Arcangelo Dandini exudes the confidence of someone who knows that the food and wine are exemplary. For example, an octopus salad with potatoes, capers and artichokes was perfection on a plate. The balance of the flavours and the amount of each ingredient were impeccable. Sometimes you’d take a mouthful of a dish and you’d just know that these ingredients were made for eachother, making me wonder why I didn’t cook more simply when we’re staying in apartments. Our rigatoni alla matriciana was one of the best pasta dishes we’d ever sampled and if the head chef is from India he’s had excellent guidance from Arcangelo, who is responsible for many of the recipes and much of what’s on the menu. The wines recommended (including the owners’ own lovely bianco) were beautifully matched and the meal flowed seamlessly, leaving us floating off giddily for a well-earned siesta. Now that’s our idea of fine dining.

* Travel writer-photographer Terry Carter is my husband and co-author (although that's my lazy photography, pictured).

Putting context back into travel, OR why contextualizing travel is cool

Now, you know I'm not a fan of guides (see this post) and my recent observation of a tour guide who stopped at each key sight at the Roman Forum to read passages from a guidebook to her bored tour group only reaffirmed many of my beliefs on guides and guided tours. Yet Context Travel is on an altogether different level. For starters, they prefer to call their guides 'docents', an American term for university professors or lecturers, reflecting the qualifications and expertise of their guides, many of whom are scholars who moved to Italy to complete doctorates on the subjects they're leading tours on. And they come from a wide variety of disciplines, including archaeologists, chefs, architects, artists, authors, and historians. While some of their walks involve stimulating strolls through Rome's long history, other offerings range from a literary discussion about Dante as you wander Florence's streets to an introduction to Roman cuisine while exploring lively local markets, along with lighter activities from drawing workshops at Castel Sant' Angelo to jogging tours through Rome's city streets. We did an inspiring and enlightening Italian language workshop in a buzzy local enoteca, an engaging walk through ancient Rome, a fun bar-hopping introduction to Italian wine, and an exclusive private shopping tour to visit some of Rome's best bespoke artisans. Context's owner Paul Bennett says: "Our walking seminars are, on some levels, love songs, paeans, and odes to a place that fascinates us day by day. Like Cupid with his arrows, Context events are designed to make you fall in love with Rome." We certainly came away from each and every engaging and eye-opening experience feeling like somehow had helped us gently scrape away a layer or two of the city so that we knew and loved it better than we had before. Don't you love it when that happens?

Enriching the experience of travel: it's all about context

I have a secret: despite writing and contributing to some 25 Lonely Planet guidebooks, I have to admit I've always preferred Rough Guides - primarily for their fantastic Contexts chapters at the back of the books. While many guidebook publishers have been cutting back on word counts in the history, politics and culture chapters of their guides over recent years (yes, I'm talking about you, Lonely Planet!), Rough Guides have maintained their compelling Contexts chapters. These comprehensive sections sometimes stretch to 50 pages or more, demonstrating an appreciation that this is the kind of fascinating stuff that really enriches a traveller's experience of a place, helping us to understand a culture and get beneath the skin of a destination. Context is therefore a fitting name for the first-rate organization with whom we recently did a number of very cool workshops and walking tours in Rome. More on Context and context soon!

The Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel after hours: the only way to go

If you've visited the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel in Rome, then you probably did so with thousands of other people - or, to be more precise, tens of thousands. The attraction is a magnet for a mindbogglingly 25,000 people a day. The hours of waiting in the inconceivably long line that stretches around the huge block that's home to the Vatican and St Peter's Basilica, all the way to the square itself, is a major deterrence for many. It was for us on our first trip to Rome ten years ago. And even if you're smart enough to book tickets in advance, or desperate enough to join a tour group, once inside the experience can be tremendously disappointing. You're swept up in a sea of sweaty people and the feeling is akin to drowning. There's little room to move to stop to appreciate something that might catch your eye. You can't hear yourself think to even begin to reflect upon the exquisite art for the constant hum of thousands of voices and the interminable irritating lectures shouted out by guides to their groups in an attempt to be heard above the drone. The hundreds of little flags in the air waved about by guides so they don't lose any sheep from the flock obstructs your vision. Movement through the galleries is at a snail's pace simply because there is nowhere to move so everyone shuffles slowly along. Descending the stairs was a suffocating experience, and not one for claustrophobics. Once inside the Sistine Chapel, where entry is measured and numbers restricted, we were whisked through so swiftly (so the other 24,998 people could have their turn!) that there was little time to enjoy what must be at one and the same time the world's most sublime religious monument and one of the most breathtakingly beautiful art galleries on the planet. My memory of the chapel as a result was hazy, so when Viator, whom we occasionally write for (see our Top things to do in Dubai and our Dubai Guide: Top 10 off the beaten path experiences), invited us to join a private after hours tour we jumped at the chance. The experience was the complete opposite of that first visit four years ago. The corridors were so quiet you could hear a pin drop on the marble floor. Our expert guide - an art historian with a PhD who spent 3 years in the Vatican libraries researching her thesis! - was able to take her time pointing out important works, and she explained them with an infectious enthusiasm and such passion that she had tears in her eyes at times. We got to dawdle through the galleries and stop wherever we wanted to admire the work. And as for our visit to the Sistine Chapel itself, we had so much time to take in the sublime space that each painting is so firmly imprinted in my mind that if I was an artist I could sketch out the entire interior for you. A private tour is the only way to go. And if you don't believe me, do it both ways and then let me know what you think. I'll let you know when our post about the experience is up on the Viator blog.

When guided tours are close to spiritual experiences: I've been converted

I'm converted. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. I can now reveal I'm addicted to cool guided tours. My definition? Enriching, focused, well thought-out, specialized tours to compelling places with small groups (so miniscule you can remember everyone's names), led by super qualified and highly specialized guides who are as fascinating as the places you're visiting. (Read this post for my criteria for selecting guides.) I am now so hooked on these things that we've not long finished a series of walking tours in Rome with Context that I'm already begging them for more and finding out where I can score my next walk - Venice next month! But can I make it until then?! The cause of this change in heart, taste and opinion? Two superb organizations, Context and Viator, with whom we did a series of exceptional walking tours, private visits and bespoke tours in Rome recently. Now, because you know how much I've disliked my experience of guided tours in the past (read my post: Good guides, bad guides: the bad guides), you're probably thinking these must have been rather extraordinary experiences to change my mind. They were. But I'm in Milan now, and it's aperitivi hour and time for pre-dinner drinks so I'll get back to you tomorrow to tell you more about the walks, and Calabria, and Milan. Ciao!

Pictured? The Vatican Museums after hours. Yes, that's right - when everyone else has gone home. There were just eight of us on Viator's private tour and everyone agreed it was worth every cent for the sublime experience of enjoying the Sistine Chapel in silence.

It's good to be a tourist in... Rome!

Before I tell you about our travels in Calabria, I must share something about our recent visit to Rome (post-Istanbul) where we spent a week gathering content for several travel stories, experiencing walking tours, hotels, restaurants, and museums, doing interviews with fascinating locals, and for my husband and co-writer Terry, shooting photos. Despite the fact that we were working, for the first time in a long time, I felt like a tourist. And, much to my surprise, it felt fantastic. We'd been to Rome a few times before, yet this trip was different. The first time we visited, a decade ago, Terry and I were spending a summer backpacking through Italy, Spain and Portugal. The second trip I took my mother as part of a summer sojourn to places she'd always wanted to go but had never been - Istanbul, the Greek Islands, Paris, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Spain - as a way toward healing and learning to live again following my dad's death from cancer. The third visit was at the end of another long Italian summer for Terry and I that involved writing a book in Milan, followed by (our reward!) travel to some Italian places we'd never been together, a driving trip through Sicily, time kicking back on the Aeolian Islands, a jaunt to the Amalfi Coast and Capri where our days were spent walking and swimming and nights spent eating and drinking, and finally some days in each of Napoli and Roma where we did the design hotels, hot new restaurants, and hip bars. This trip to Rome was altogether different. For the stories we were researching we did a series of guided tours and walks (something we never do), and we stayed in the Vatican City and Via Veneto, where it's impossible to escape the tour groups and hoards of tourists. We were just two of tens of thousands of travellers clutching our guidebooks as we did the sights. Sure I was making lengthy notes and observing the people as much as the places, and Terry was carting around one too many cameras to be a tourist, but still we somehow got caught up in the flow. Like little leaves we floated down Rome's cobblestone streets, centuries of complex history surrounding us, and we loved it. For the first time in a long time I felt so exhilarated by a city, it was as if I was experiencing it for the first time. And it felt great. It felt good to be a tourist in Rome. But I'm not sure how many other cities I could say that about...

Or... everything old is new again

While in Istanbul last week I picked up the May special 'Europe' issue of US Travel + Leisure with a feature on "Hidden European Neighbourhoods". The author writes: "Beyoglu is now reclaiming its status as Istanbul's favourite playground". Yet Beyoglu has always been Istanbul's commercial heart and its main pedestrianised street is the city's main shopping boulevard. Beyoglu is hardly "hidden" and it has always had a buzz about it, especially in the evening when it seems the whole of Turkey is out shopping, eating and drinking. The neighbourhoods that have experienced a renaissance in recent years are Tunel, Cukurcuma and Cihangir, considered the coolest by locals and the most interesting to explore for travellers with their cutting-edge boutiques, music stores, vintage clothes shops, antique stores, hip cafes and bars. Take a look at 'Istanbul, the Undiscovered Capital of Cool', which we published in April 2007. I'm in Rome this week, so it's amusing to read that Ponte, Parione and Regola are the eternal city's latest hot spots. These neighbourhoods are a hop, skip and a jump from Piazza Navona and their well-trodden cobblestone streets have always been the focus of tourist activity. While they're lovely, again, they're far from "hidden". Monti is much more fascinating, with its music school, funky boutiques, design stores, and laidback trattorias, while gritty San Lorenzo is the city's bohemian heart. But then the residents of Monti and San Lorenzo would probably argue their 'hoods have always been hip.