When we hear the word “Palio” mentioned, what instantly springs to mind is a picture of the Piazza del Campo di Siena thronging with jockeys dressed in colourful period garments participating in a vigorous horse race. To our surprise, we discovered that the Palio is not exclusive to Siena and that Ferrara has its own, which also happens to be the oldest in Italy. Surprised? Both festivities go back to the Middle Ages and have endured over the centuries. They are nowadays the perfect excuse for letting ourselves be transported back to a time filled with gestures, horses, beautiful damsels and rivalries between the variouscontrade(parish districts.)

Il Palio di Ferrara – the Origins

The first Palio di Ferrara was held in 1259, the year in which Azzo VII da Ferrara, commander of the papal troops, defeated Ezzelino III da Romano, known as “il Tiranno”, commander of the imperial troops, at Cassano d’Adda. To celebrate the victory, parades were organised all over the city, as were donkey and horse races. This way of celebrating immediately became very popular and for a time was applied to Ferrara’s two major festivities – St George, the city’s patron saint, and the Assumption, known here as the “Virgin of August”. In some instances they were also extended to births and weddings among Ferrara’s most powerful families. However, as of 1600, the races were gradually phased out and replaced by parades. The races and the Palio were only reinstated in the early 20th century, eventually becoming the festivity that we know today.

May in Ferrara – Games, Parades, Sbandieratori and Races

What are we likely to find if we visit Ferrara in May? To start with, the perfect setting for being transported back to another era, as this city in Emilia Romagna boasts a historic centre full of medieval and Renaissance landmarks. The Palio festivity involves eight competing teams from the contrade (four rioni or parish districts within the walled city) and borghi (four districts located outside the city walls). Throughout the month of May, every weekend features a parade, game or flag-waving competition at which the rival contrade are San Giorgio, San Giacomo, San Paolo, Santo Spirito, Santa Maria in Vado, San Luca, San Giovanni and San Benedetto.

Particularly stunning is the Historical Procession at which about a thousand people in Renaissance costume parade from the Porta degli Angeli along the Corso Ercole I d’Este to the Castello Estense. Also a must-see are the competitions at which the sbandieratori show off their flag-whirling skills in the course of a veritable display of dexterity, beauty and colour.

The Palio festivities reach their climax in the races staged on the last weekend in the month. The large Piazza Ariostea, designed by the architect, Biagio Rossetti, is the magnificent setting for this event. A total offour races are held: the Boys’ Race (Palio di San Romano), the Girls’ Race (Palio di San Paolo), the Donkey Race (Palio di San Maurelio) and the Horse Race (Palio di San Giorgio).  The prize, a large hand-painted cloth, is known as the Palio, from which the tradition takes its name.

Discover Ferrara and one of its major festivities!

Text by ISABELYLUIS Comunicación

Images by Il Palio di Ferrara (photographer: Geppy Toglia)

Movie tourism is a fun way to explore a city, discovering the places where some of our favorite scenes were filmed and where our favorite actors ever acted.
No one can deny the close relationship between Sicily and the cinema when 60 kilometers from Palermo, we come across a city like Corleone that makes the island a world tourist destination for curious and moviegoers.
Let us therefore take a tour around the locations of one of the most famous trilogies in movie history!

1.- Massimo Theatre

The Masimo Theatre in Palermo is located in Piazza Verdi and is the largest of the opera houses in Italy and the third largest in Europe, a neoclassical building dating from the nineteenth century.

On the front steps of this Opera House in Sicily, Coppola filmed the final scene of the film The Godfather III, one of the highlighted moments, in which Mary, Michael Corleone’s daughter, is killed by a gunman while the Intermezzo for Pietro Mascagni Cavaleria’s Opera Rusticana is played on the background .

2.- Villa Malfitano

This neo-Renaissance villa style is found in Via Dante Alighieri, 167 and is home to the Whitaker Foundation. The art collections compiled by the owner during his travels, like furniture, paintings, porcelain and Flemish tapestries from the sixteenth century garnish the rooms in the inside. Its beautiful garden is rated 5 hectares with curious plants from around the world, such as Tunisia, Sumatra, Australia, and some 150 different kinds of orchids. You can visit Villa Malfitano every morning from Monday to Saturday

Here took place the toast to Anthony‘s debut as opera singer. Anthony is the son of Michael Corleone.

3.- Castello degli Schiavi

Castello degli Schiavi, a Sicilian villa into decay already used in 1968 by Pier Paolo Pasolini to shoot some scenes for the movie The orgy is located  in Via Marina Fiumefreddo,  in the other end of the island. But surely, appearing in The Godfather I and II, has made the castle famous. Coppola used it for various scenes, especially is remembered for being Michael Corelone‘s death place.

4.- Corleone

Even if the name makes this famous family come to your mind, Corleone was not the real place for the film’s shooting. Want to know why? By the time of filming “The Godfather”,  a judge’s murderer was nearby so they had to find new location for filming scenes corresponding to Corleone. They finally took place in two small coastal towns: Savoca and Forza D’Agro.

Despite his fame, today Corleone is a key city in the fight against the Mafia. The proof of this is Laboratorio della Legalità, a museum center founded by organizations involved in fighting the mafia, and dedicated to Magistrate Paolo Borsellino, killed during the mafia’s massacres. At the time, this building provided shelter to Bernardo Provenzano, the head of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra until his arrest in 2006.

Do not leave Corleone without trying their famous cannoli, a Sicilian origin dessert prepared here as nowhere else! This is a tube-shaped pasta filled with sweet creamy made of ricotta . “Leave the gun, take the canoli” says Peter Clemenza in a movie scene.

5.- Other Sicilian movie sites

If you are interested in this type of film tourism, you can also get close to Chiusa Sclafani, the magical village that inspired Giuseppe Tornatore to create Giancaldo in Cinema Paradiso as well as Bagheria, Castelbuono, Cefalu, Palazzo Adriano  or Santa Flavia de Sicila.  Piazza Bellini in  Palermo was the scene of some sequences for Talented Mister Ripley.

Imagen de Michael Urso

A place well worth discovering! Check out our flights here.

Visitors to the every surprising and – for many – chaotic Naples have a huge array of things to see and do. Interesting sights include its magnificent churches, like those of San Francesco da Paola and Gesù Nuovo, castles like the Castel dell’Ovo and such amazing archaeological jewels as those on display in the National Archaeological Museum, including exhibits from the ancient sites at Pompeii and Herculaneum. You could also just stroll through the streets of its Centro Storico, designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. And, of course, all such sightseeing requires timely stopovers to indulge in their excellent pizzas, which is why we have come to the place where this popular dish first saw the light.

As if all the things we can enjoy on the city’s ground level were not enough, in its bowels lurks a whole world of tunnels, galleries, catacombs, cisterns and countless spaces where the earliest traces unearthed belong to the founders of Naples – the Greeks. The latest of them endure into our own times, as the Camorra is said to have used the network for their drug running and their undercover meetings. Nowadays, particularly in recent years, this hidden face of the city, known as the Naples Underground or Napoli Sotterranea, has been attracting ever greater attention and has now become yet another tourist attraction. And, understandably so, as many a story lies buried in that subsoil.

As mentioned in passing, it was the Greeks who first started building that “invisible” underground city for the purpose of defence and as a place of worship. The Romans continued where the Greeks left off, although they took things a step further – they created a network of underground channels and aqueducts for water conveyance. Much of that original system of water channelling continued to be used in the city until the early-20th century. Also from those ancient times are the remains of a Greco-Roman theatre which visitors can see on a tour of subterranean Naples. Legend has it that Nero himself sung in the theatre during an earthquake set off by the nearby volcano, Vesuvius.

Persecuted for their faith, the early Christians used those catacombs to gather for prayer and to bury their dead. Indeed, one of the most striking features of the Naples Underground is precisely the Catacombs of San Gennaro, tunnelled out of a large chunk of the Capodimonte hillside. They are the largest catacombs in southern Italy. With passageways arranged on two unstratified levels, they feature some fresco remains from the late-2nd-century AD. Interestingly, San Gennaro is the city’s patron saint, while the catacombs were the burial site of Neapolitan bishops and a place of pilgrimage up until the 11th century. There are two other catacombs in the city –San Severo, of which only a small cubicle remains, and San Gaudioso, reached via the Basilica of Santa Maria della Sanità.

Apart from acting as hideouts, means of conveyance and access routes to the city, these passageways were also turned to belligerent purposes, as on more than one occasion they were used to mount surprise attacks on the city. That was true of operations conducted by Belisarius in the year 536, and Alfonso of Aragon in 1442, or at least that is how the story goes. Closer to our times, the underground was used as an air-raid shelter during World War II. Objects surviving from that horrific period can still be seen there.

Entrance to the Naples underground is via the Piazza San Gaetano, 68 and guided tours are available in Italian or English. Scheduled times are given on their website.

Embark on an adventure of discovery in the Naples Underground and unearth the stories hidden there. Check out your flight here.

Text by Los Viajes de ISABELYLUIS

Images by Adele84Adele, Armando Mancini, Andrea Tosatto, Giuseppe Guida, AlMare

1.- Museu Olímpic i de l’Esport Joan Antoni Samaranch | In the slopes of the Barcelona ’92 Olympic Stadium there is the museum with the memories of that historic milestone for the city. Next to the stadium, you can also enjoy Palau Sant Jordi, Picornell swimmingpools and other Olympic venues.

2.- Museu del Barça | Beside the Camp Nou, on a day without match, the best thing to do is take the tour to the facilities of the club and wander through the Museum of FC Barcelona, an installation rich in multimedia material and historical memories of the club, such as the boots with which Koeman scored the goal that gave the first European Cup to the club.

3.- Palau Blaugrana|  Slightly eclipsed by the majestic Camp Nou. In Palau Blaugrana, lies one of the most familiar FC Barcelona values: its multidisciplinarity. Barça teams of Basketball, Handball, Roller Hockey and Futsal play their games in this ancient but hot venue.

4.- Frankfurt Pedralbes | The most traditional plan for Barça supporters is, before going to the game, stop by the more typical  frankfurt of the city to fill the stomach and share the atmosphere with other supporters at a establishment well known by all the locals.

5.- Estadio de Les Corts | Nothing remains of the former FC Barcelona stadium, but in here laid the headquarters of FC Barcelona before Kubala forced the club to build a new stadium (Camp Nou in Catalan). Les Corts  became too small when so many people wanted to see the Hungarian genius playing football.

6.- Estadio de Sarrià | Today,  it is only still standing the corner gas station from the former RCD Espanyol stadium. But even though to the naked eye are observed only luxury flats, the true football fan in that corner can easily see  the World Cup ’82 Stadium where Brazil and Italy left one of the best shocks in the history of the World Cup.

7.- Font de Canaletes | The tourist won’t even see the small fountain that on the right side of the top of the Ramblas observes all visitors if passes distracted. This is the Font de Canaletes where all Barca fans get together  to celebrate victories and championships and even the defeats of Real Madrid.

8.- Michael Collins Irish Pub | If there is a football game and you would like to see people drinking beer and having a good time in a good atmosphere, this is the place to be. The most famous irish pub in the city where you will always find people to watch any international  match. Overlooking Sagrada Familia.

9.- Hotel Vela | Barcelona coast’s architectural icon, this is the place chosen by FC Barcelona to spend the nights before the important Champions League matches. There begins the seafront promenade that runs all the Barcelona beaches, catwalk full of runners, cyclists, skaters, surfers and beach volleyball enthusiasts. The hotel also houses a cocktail bar with a trendy terrace.

10.- Estadi Cornellà-El Prat | Half field of the stadium is located in Cornella  and the other half is in El Prat, hence the name of the new home for RCD Espanyol. A modern and charming stadium full of very passionate supporters. It is worth a visit, while far from the city, and there is a large shopping center in front of the field.

11.- Olímpic de Badalona | Apart from being home to Joventut de Badalona, a traditional Catalan basketball club , any basketball lover should immediately associate this name to ‘Dream Team’. A unique team in the Sports history  formed by Jordan, Johnson, Bird and company amazed everyone in the Olimpic de Badalona.

By Panenka www.panenka.org

Picture by Yearofthedragon

So you feel like visiting Barcelona, do you? Book your flights here!