Conquer florence italy

Florence Italy accommodation as far as hotel and farmhouse are concerned, let your imagination go from richly furnished five star hotels either in the hub of the city or smaller town accommodations, hidden away in the green hued countryside. From palaces to castles exquisitely decorated and pensions or guesthouses owned by friendly local people. These all year round lodgings have a wide price range but you can assured that good bargains are to be found in the low season. Florence welcomes everybody to be comfortable and caters to everyone’s budget. Wealth and Comfort in Florence Italy The Savoy Hotel is a favourite for those wishing to fulfil a desire for luxury sleeping, not forgetting the shopping gallery and excellent cuisine at the restaurant. The Hotel II Guelfo Bianco on the Via Cavour right near the San Marco Square has antique art treasures and original paintings and excellent commodities. Or maybe a stay at the Grand Hotel Baglioni with its sweeping grey stone stairway so typical of many Florentine monuments and wooden beams decorating the ceiling all which give you that special feeling of peace and relax. Florence city needs to be visited during an extended period of time and if this is not feasible, then short visits are ideal to take in all the museums. And for me, one of the best ways to do this is by staying in a small town farmhouse near Florence and with your Florence car rental, enjoy small joints into the city. One of the cutest medieval towns nearby is San Gimignano, situated in the triangle of Siena, Florence and Volterra. San Gimignano is undoubtedly known for its thirteen remaining towers of the original seventy-two which once existed. Here, you can have sweet dreams sleeping in a mansion from the 14th century and have breakfast in a precious patio. Or in a rural house with high ceilings and worked iron beds. Praise Good Italian Cooking At some of these farmhouses there are cookery classes and it is here where I learned to cook Stracotto or ‘Pot Roast’. This is a very popular weekend Sunday meal in Italy as well as in Great Britain and North America. The Italians serve it over a delicious noodles bed of pasta enriched with the Chianti wine sauce where the others serve it with potatoes. Here goes...... Stracotto (serves 4-6 persons) - 3 to 4 lbs. top round beef - 4 thinly sliced garlic cloves - 3 medium thinly sliced carrots - 3 medium diced onions - rosemary leaves - 2 cut up celery stalks - 2 cups water - 1 lb. ripe tomatoes ( peel, seed and cut them ) - 1 fourth cup olive oil - 1 and a half cup Chianti or dry red wine - 1 tbsp. melted butter - 1 tbsp. flour - salt and pepper as you like - 1 lb. pasta of your choice Roll and tie up beef and then make small holes to put the garlic into. In a saucepan, heat the oil and slowly cook the carrots, onions and celery until soft and add in the rosemary. Push these vegetables to one side and put the beef roll in the middle and brown on all sides at the same time as you are sautйing the veggies. Add in the tomatoes and when they are getting soft, add the wine. Boil until the wine liquid has been consumed to about one half cup and add 1 and a half cup of water and let simmer for about 1 hour more. Separate the meat and vegetables from the broth and let the meat cool. With remaining half cup of water mix the flour and the melted butter in with the broth and cook, constantly stirring it for 3 minutes. Slice meat and put the pasta and the sauce in the middle of the plate and two or three meat slices to one side and top with some more sauce if desired. Bon appetite! This is just one of the Florence Italy recipes that I learned. Stay tuned for more!

Peak 8 of breckenridge ski resort

Breckenridge's four peaks average vertical is 13,300 feet. Breckenridge offers some of the most extreme skiing terrain in North America. This years brand new Imperial Express chair lift takes you just 500-feet from the summit of peak 8. Up here, you will find lake chutes which are considered to be the most extreme skiing in Colorado. There is little room for error up here. The lake chutesare the closest your going to get to an Alaskan heli ski trip without the helicopter. Don't forget about the big rocky chutes and big cornus drop which if you can ace it, will help your chances of survival. Peak 8 also includes the T bar lift which will access you to brilliant runs like horseshoe bowl, debbeys alley, boundary chutes and vertigo. Horse shoe bowl is big and steep with big boulder drops on the skiers left and right but if you ride right down the middle I promise you smooth steep lines. If by chance you wake up early enough, try to get that first ride up on the t-bar. Once you get up here, ride the horseshoe bowl for the steepest powder field in Colorado. The best part about this is that you won't have to deal with a painful hike. Debbies alley brings chills down my spine and the amount of small rock drops is pure fun. The bottom of this run offers beautiful gladed trees with small drops too. These are the most extreme runs on peak eight consisting mostly of double black diamond. Peak 8 also includes beautifully groomed blue and green runs like springer, parklane, power line, and north star. If your skills are there you might want to give north star a try. Its tight lines make it a real challenge. This run has a natural half-pipe with plenty of trees on the skiers left and right side. Don't slack on this run and always beware of the bumps, because they are sprinkled everywhere. Springer, parklane and power line are smoothe groomers which you can pick up a lot of speed so watch your lines. The last thing you need to happen on your vacation is to take out a family on a groomer. So always ride in control. Enjoy your ski vacation in Breckenridge, CO.

Monaco prince takes pole position

More used to Grand Prix cars than dog sleighs, Monaco’s Prince Albert’s forthcoming trek to the North Pole has been greeted with surprise by many. But the Prince is fairly accustomed to the cold, in contrast to the Mediterranean warmth of Monaco where he became ruler last July following the passing of his father Prince Rainier, who had ruled the tax haven for over 50 years. Albert represented Monaco at the last five Winter Olympic Games in their Bobsleigh team. And he is going to face some cold and hostile conditions on his seven day trip to bring to the attention of fellow world leaders the environmental damage to the arctic regions that global warming is having. Speaking at a recent news conference in Monaco, Albert explained his thinking behind the trip to assembled journalists. ‘If in our modest way, by this action we are able to bring environmental problems to the forefront and force some leaders to take stronger actions, this expedition will have achieved its objectives’. Environmentalists have welcomed Albert’s expedition, and his image in the world’s media is changing from that of a playboy millionaire to a responsible leader. In 2002 47 year old Prince Albert agreed to a DNA test to show whether he was the father to a boy born to a former air hostess he had had a relationship with, and more recently has been linked by the press with 28 year old South African swimming champion Charlene Wittstock. But one of the first actions he took after succeeding to the throne was to sign the Kyoto Protocol, taking Monaco outside of the small group of countries that had failed to ratify the treaty, designed to reduce the world’s emissions of greenhouses gases. Monaco Grand Prix The Monaco Prince Albert inherited from his father is now the world’s best known tax haven, and the ultimate European destination for luxury hotels, including the Hotel de Paris, frequently quoted in guides as among the top ten in the world. one local on-line travel guide comment that Prince Albert’s interest in the world’s environment sets a different agenda than that of his father, who transformed the principality in his reign into an economically safe country for the world’s wealthy to live and invest. Residents of the principality enjoy a zero rated income tax. As well as being a tax haven, Monaco hosts the best known Formula 1 Grand Prix of the year around the streets of Monte Carlo and Fontveille in May. Over recent years Monaco has also become a destination of choice for the super-rich in September, when it hosts the Monaco Yacht Show. And while the Grand Prix and Yacht Show fill the hotels in Monte Carlo and Monaco each year, and on an everyday basis every second car seems to be an Aston Martin or Ferrari, locals hope that Prince Albert doesn’t look too close to home when it comes to his concern for the environment. Cancelling the Monaco Grand Prix in 2007 to show his concern for the environment would certainly grab world headlines, but might not be a popular decision among his subjects. But locals feel that there is little danger of this though – Albert is after all the son of Hollywood star Grace Kelly, and future media appearances could just as well be in celebrity magazines as environment campaign ones.