Italy Travel Apps from Italia!/ Taste Italia Magazines

There was so much interest in our new Rome app that we would like to tell you about other apps that might help you with your Italian travels - a fantastic range of new apps brought to you by our friends, the publishers of Italia! and Taste Italia magazines.

From Italian living and travel to food and drink, and the perfect Italian Christmas, there really is something for everybody in this fantastic range of apps, available from just $1.99. Take them everywhere you go when you download them to your iPhone/iPad/iPod!
Features of the Italia! and Taste Italia themed apps:
+ Download an issue and read on or offline
+ Apps from just $1.99*
+ Save weight in your luggage with the Italia! travel guides
+ Ingredient lists always to hand when you're at the shops
+ Keep as many issues as you like all in one place
+ Take every issue with you wherever you go
+ Turn the pages like a print magazine
+ Easy navigation and zoom function
+ Contents and hyperlinks for easy searchability

Download the Italian Christmas Recipes App - Just $6.99

Download the Italia! Magazine App -  From $1.99

Download the Taste Italia Magazine App - From $1.99

Download the Tuscany Guide App - Just $6.99

Postcards From Italy: Naples Doll Hospital

This holday season, we've partnered with filmmaker Steven McCurdy to give away TWO DVDs of his Italy travel documentaries with every subscription/renewal or gift subscription to the award-winning travel newsletter Dream of Italy (there's still time to order for Christmas delivery in the U.S.!)

In the documentary Postcards from Italy, McCurdy journeys through southern Italy showcasing ordinary Italians who are diligently preserving age-old traditions and customs.

In Naples,  he meets the charming Luigi Grassi who has spent his whole life "repairing objects of love" at The Doll Hospital (Ospedale delle Bombole). Enjoy this clip....

Postcards From Italy: Rome Video

We're currently offering TWO BONUS DVDs (worth $40) of filmmaker Steven McCurdy's Italy documentaries with every Dream of Italy subscription. McCurdy (see our interview with him) has an eye for what makes Italy so alluring. In this clip from one of the DVDs, Postcards From Italy, he sets the sites of Rome to music:

Finding Santa's Bones in Southern Italy

While the above headline is no doubt alarming, don't worry, I have it on good authority that Santa Claus is alive and well and quite busy up at the North Pole. But his inspiration, the original St. Nick, a 4th-century Greek bishop, rests in the region of Puglia. Saint Nicholas was known for his secret gift-giving. The legend goes that believers left their shoes out and he filled them with gold coins.

The story of how the "original Santa Claus" got to the city of Bari from where he perished in Turkey is recounting the fascinating article Saving Santa's Bones. Apparently, roughly 900 years ago, if your city didn't have a pilgrimage site, you were practicially left of the map. So the good folks of Bari decided to hatch a plan to get themselves some relics!

"Three ships and 47 sailors set sail in 1087 for Myra, Turkey, the site where St. Nicholas had been buried some 800 years previously. After convincing custodians at the church where the saint was buried that they were pilgrims, the pirates smashed open the grave, took most of the ancient relics, and carried them back to Bari," writer Debbie Olsen recounts.

Since then, St. Nick's remains have resided in a crypt beneath the altar of the Romanesque Basilica di San Nicola. Olsen writes,"Every year, Bari re-enacts the arrival of the body of St. Nicholas from Turkey with a 10-day festival in early May. The highlight of the Festa di San Nicola is the "translation ceremony," where a statue of St. Nicholas is paraded through the streets with 500 costumed attendants and taken out to sea and brought back to the Basilica."

Learn more about Christmas in Italy in our FREE 35-page e-book -- filled with Italian Christmas and New Year's traditions, Italy holiday travel tips and traditional Italian Christmas recipes!

Christmas Around Italy In Photos: From Bolzano to Puglia

My latest contribution for travel section of The Huffington Post is a slideshow on Christmas in Italy. Click on the photo below to start your journey through age-old holiday traditions in Rome, Milan, Turin, Alto-Aldige, Umbria, Puglia and more....

Learn more in our FREE 35-page Christmas in Italy Guide -- filled with Italian Christmas and New Year's traditions, Italy holiday travel tips and traditional Italian Christmas recipes!

Spend Christmas in Italy with These Hotel Packages

Hotels throughout Italy realize what a special experience it is to spend Christmas in Italy where frankly, the holiday remains more authentic and family-oriented than in the United States. If you're plotting an Italian Christmas vacation, here are some special places to spend the holiday:

•  Two Amalfi Coast hotels are offering packages that include a chance to experience age-old Italian artistery. One offers an excursion to the nativity workshops of Naples and another teaches guests the art of inlaid wood in Sorrento.
• Rome is one of Italy's top Christmas destinations. If you're in the mood for Christmas luxury, check out the holiday packages at these Rome hotels.
• These Florence and Tuscany hotels have Christmas and New Year's packages starting at 99euros per night - a bargain for the holiday season in Italy.
• These Venice hotels include small holiday touches with their Christmas package - a holiday gift, welcome drinks, a Christmas meal, etc.

Learn more in our FREE 35-page Guide to Christmas in Italy -- filled with Italian Christmas and New Year's traditions, Italy holiday travel tips and traditional Italian recipes.


Photo by Any.colour.you.like, flickr.com

What Does The Christmas Eve Feast of Seven Fishes Cost for an Italian Family?

The Feast of the Seven Fishes is the typical Christmas Eve meal served on family tables throughout Italy. It is no secret that times are tough in Italy these days. Having just returned from Italy several weeks ago, I can tell you that the word I kept hearing again and again was "crisis." So how will this affect how Italians celebrate Christmas?

According to this fascinating article Italians Pass on Prosecco, Italians are cutting on spending wherever they can. "People are eating less pasta than a year ago," a supermarket manager told Bloomberg News. "They don't buy pasta topping. They put off buying mayonnaise." Will the cost of seven fishes be too much for the typical Italian be too much this year? Here's how Bloomberg breaks down the meal for a family of eight:

• seafood antipasti = 50 euros
• bass, bream and salmon = 35 euros
• clams with spaghetti = 24 euros
• panettone for dessert = 4.99 euros

Learn more in our FREE 35-page Guide to Christmas in Italy -- filled with Italian Christmas and New Year's traditions, Italy holiday travel tips and traditional Italian recipes.

See the Vatican Christmas Tree in St. Peter's Square

The Ukraine has donated a 100-foot Christmas tree to be displayed in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City this holiday season. The gigantic spruce tree will be lifted into position on December 5th and lit during a ceremony on December 16th. It is expected to be decorated with more than 2,500 ornaments and numerous white and yellow lights.  Along with the Christmas tree, a life-size Nativity scene or presepio (creche in Italian) will grace the center of the square.

In 1982, Pope John Paul II started the tradition of erecting a tall Christmas tree in St. Peter's Square and it has now become an essential part of Christmas in Rome.

Learn more in our FREE 35-page Christmas in Italy ebook, filled with Christmas and New Year's traditions, Italy holiday travel tips and traditional Italian recipes.

Photo by ANSA