The Val d’Orcia valley is the Tuscany of everyone’s dreams, with medieval castles, rolling landscapes, ancient hill towns and vineyards.

Less than two hours from Florence

Crossed by the river Orcia, from which the valley takes its name, this beautiful region in the south of Tuscany runs through the provinces of Siena and Grosseto, and is less than two hours by car from Florence. The entire area is now protected, having been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004. What makes the Val d'Orcia so special is its uncontaminated and beautiful nature, but this is also the land that produces some of Italy’s most famous and excellent wines, like Brunello di Montalcino and Rosso Orcia among other DOCG denominations.

Pienza is the ideal Renaisance city

The beautiful Val d'Orcia is dotted with small hill towns, castles, abbeys, and hamlets, each with its own incredible history. Towns like Pienza, a real gem and known as the Ideal City, it is a Renaissance monument designed by Pius II, the great humanist pope. Then there are Castiglion d'Orcia with its fortress, Abbadia San Salvatore and its ancient Benedictine abbey, hilltop Radicofani which has an imposing watchtower, and Montalcino which is dominated by its 14th-century fortress, After a day visiting museums, ancient castles and abbeys, visitor will want to take time to relax in one of the many thermal towns like Bagno Vignoni or Bagni di San Filippo which are the Val d’Orcia’s natural spas.

Tuscan truffles

A destination for gourmets 

The Val d’Orcia produces some of Italy’s best-loved products such as the fabulous pecorino cheese of Pienza, flavoursome olive oil and excellent wines. But the ancient traditions do not end here, because gourmets can delight in specialties like saffron, mushrooms, truffles, wild game and more, also to be enjoyed by taking the Strada del Vino e Sapori wine and food trail. 

ITA Airways took fourth place in the Best Inflight Food category of the Best Readers’ Choice Awards 2024, chosen annually by the readers of USA Today. 

“Our menus are curated by starred Italian chefs”

In the ranking that rewards the ten best-rated carriers for their on-board gastronomic offer, ITA tops the European airlines to occupy the highest position.

“This recognition is further confirmation that we are going in the right direction in offering our passengers a unique and memorable Italian experience every time they fly with us. We work hard to make our passengers feel immersed in Italian culture from the moment they step on board and the in-flight menus are an essential part of this goal” said Andrea Benassi, general manager of ITA Airways. “Our menus are curated by starred Italian chefs, allowing ITA to bring the flavours of Italian cuisine to high altitudes and guarantee customers an authentic experience on all intercontinental flights.”

New Dubai and Bangkok flights in October and November 

2024 is a year of significant growth for ITA Airways: during the summer the company operated flights to 57 destinations, of which 16 domestic, 26 international and 15 intercontinental, while it inaugurated new direct flights from Rome Fiumicino to Chicago and Toronto in North America, Accra and Dakar, Riyadh and Jeddah. In the coming winter season, ITA will further expand its network with new connections to Asia, introducing new direct flights from Rome Fiumicino to Dubai from 27 October and to Bangkok from 16 November. 

Rome’s Quartiere Coppedè is a bizarre residential area featuring an alluring mix of different styles, art and eras. 

Popular with visitors for its unusual architecture

The Quartiere Coppedè district is nestled in Rome’s Trieste district, in the northern part of the Eternal City, not far from the city centre, and it has become popular with visitors for its fantastic mix of Ancient Greek, Roman Baroque, Mannerist, Medieval, and Art Nouveau styles. This weird mishmash of architecture was created in 1919 by the Florentine architect Gino Coppedè, from whom the quarter gets its name, and he worked on the district right up to his death in 1927.

The Coppedè district has over 40 unusual buildings

The Quartiere Coppedè has many Art Nouveau palaces with floral, mythological and medieval details. The 31,000 sqm of the quarter - in all some 40 or so buildings – include Florentine-style towers and Venetian palazzi decorated with interesting external mosaics and frescoes.  There are also typical Roman Baroque buildings with real and imitation papal crests, a sundial, and one building which has musical decorations, and ironwork with carvings that replica musical notation. Given its unusual and intriguing beauty, the Quartiere Coppedè is regularly used as a movie set, and for visitors who want a break from the majesty of imperial Rome, a visit her is a welcome distraction. 

A short tram-ride from downtown Rome

An easy way to get to the Quartiere Coppedè is to take the 3 or 19 trams and get off at Piazza Buenos Aires. From here it is a short walk to Piazza Mincio and its Fountain of the Frogs, into which the Beatles famously jumped after one of their concerts in Rome. The handsome archway over the Via Tagliamento marks the entrance to the quarter and has a whimsical outdoor chandelier, hanging right over the street. A visit to Rome’s Coppedè district is also a chance to get some great photographs and fun selfies. 

“Tourism is much more than just hotels and hospitality, tourists are our treasure,” says Eugenio Massetti who helms Visit Brescia.

Brescia welcomed over ten million visitors last year

The success of Brescia as a tourist paradise, with over ten million visitors last year, is now facing the problem of overtourism, particularly on Lake Garda and Lake Iseo. “Overtourism is the result of good promotional work,- admits Massetti  who is also vice-president of the Brescia Chamber of Commerce and president of the Confartigianato small business and trade association, - but enough is enough. The challenge now is to diversify and promote other lesser-known areas. Like the Val Camonica, a paradise for winter sports, and the countryside of the Lower Bresciana, which represents half the province and has castles, rivers and landscapes that deserve to be discovered.”  

“The year of culture was a point of departure”

In 2023 Brescia was Italy’s Capital of Culture, together with Bergamo. “The year of culture was not a point of arrival, but of departure. It allowed us to deploy significant economic resources, generating excellent results,” says Massetti whose aim is to promote more sustainable, inclusive, and high-quality travel opportunities that showcase the unique cultural and natural richness of the province of Brescia. 

 An increase in American visitors

The leading markets are Northern Europe, with Germans loyal to Lake Garda and the Dutch to Lake Iseo. “We are seeing an increase in American visitors, and are working hard on new markets like the Middle East and Canada, without forgetting the importance of the domestic market. There are still many Italians who do not know our territory.” 

Wellness, wine and skiing are all popular

Visit Brescia has its sights on a high-level tourist interested in wellness, as well as on those arriving on low-cost flights at nearby airports. And if Lake Garda and the city of Brescia remain pillars of provincial tourism, the offer is much broader, from ski and winter holiday resorts to wine-growing Franciacorta, “an area that until twenty years ago was practically unknown, but now attracts visitors from all over the world.”  

The goal is to get visitors to stay longer

“Tourism is not just measured in numbers,- concludes Massetti. -We do more tourists than Sicily, but our goal is to increase visits. We want travellers to stay an extra day or two., and we pamper them so that they come back again and again.”

. 

SNAV, an MSC Group company, is modernizing its fleet and advancing connectivity.

Boosting connections and the environmental impact

The shipping line is developing a range of new features for connections in 2025 which are due to be officially announced shortly.  The aim is to offer an increasingly efficient service in terms of both connections and the environmental impact. 

Investments in new ships

This year SNAV launched a fleet modernization programme with the introduction in June of the first HSC of the Sirius series, an enhancement that will continue in the coming months with the arrival of a sister unit. These investments have been made with the aim of providing an increasingly high-quality service and reducing the environmental impact that vessels have on the sea and the land. SNAV will focus on new lines on both short and long-haul services, opening 2025 bookings in October and presenting SNAV’s innovations aimed at the trade.

Good occupancy levels and new investments

This summer closed with a substantially positive balance. The lines that operated in the Gulf of Naples to the Aeolian Islands and to the Pontine Islands confirmed the numbers that highlighted last summer’s great recovery of tourist traffic to SNAV destinations. The company recorded good occupancy on all lines throughout the year, maintaining levels of service quality above the standard. In the Adriatic the ferry service from Ancona to Split in Croatia, a top destination, maintained a more than positive trend and the company has targeted investments planned to further boost connections.

SNAV’s year-round and seasonal services

SNAV connections are: from Naples, Castellammare and Sorrento to Capri (all year round); from Naples to Ischia and Procida (all year round), from Naples to the Aeolian Islands, from Naples to the Pontine Islands and from Ancona to Split in Croatia

The Hilton Rome Eur la Lama, which has added seven new suites, is in Rome’s  EUR business district.

The Presidential Suite is on 150 square metres

All the rooms feature large windows, contemporary design and views that reach beyond the city limits. The 150 sqm Presidential Suite on two floors has an internal staircase that embraces the vast surrounding panorama as far as the Roman Hills which can be seen from the large private terrace. This representative environment has interacting interior spaces that also relate to the dehors.

The interiors of all seven suites designed by the Lorenzo Bellini Atelier aim to envelop guests in an almost domestic comfort, with blue and sugar-paper walls, dark walnut Hungarian herringbone parquet flooring and large bookcases in the living area alongside authentic objects, glassware and vintage design ceramics. 

Show-stopping vintage furnishings

The decorative lamps and furnishings were designed by the Lorenzo Bellini Atelier studio and are complemented by authentic vintage Italian design furnishings. These include a 1950s round table attributed to Ico and Luisa Parisi, a 1950s console table with a mirror and wall sconce, 1940s upholstered deco armchairs, a 1930s rosewood art deco sideboard and a 1940s art deco dining table attributed to Osvaldo Borsani. 

A changing scenario in Italy 

It seems there is no stopping Ryanair which is aiming for 60 million passengers in Italy. The airline is having to adjust its pawns on a chessboard inevitably influenced by delays in Boeing deliveries and by changed market scenarios, from the ITA Airways-Lufthansa agreement to the closure of easyJet’s base in Venice.

“We aim to transport 4.5 million passengers at Malpensa” 

For the coming winter, the low-cost airline has therefore decided to transfer “four of the 24 aircraft based in Milan Bergamo, with a consequent 5% cut in the 20 million seats offered and five routes, to airports with lower costs and where greater growth potential is expected,” said the group's CEO Michael O'Leary. “Malpensa will therefore receive its eighth based aircraft and we will add ten new routes, for a total of 42, with the aim of transporting 4.5 million passengers (+7%).” The new entries to Malpensa will take off from Athens, Budapest, Paris, Fuerteventura, Krakow, Majorca, Marrakech, Reggio Calabria, Rzeszow and Tallinn with the “new spaces and potential opening-up linked to the finalization of the ITA-Lufthansa agreement.”

10 new Boeing 737 Max aircraft by end 2024

Globally, the low-cost airline expects to transport 200 million passengers this year, +35% compared to 2019 and +8% compared to last year, said O'Leary, who reiterated how forecasts have improved, with fares “still falling, although less than initially expected.” This sore point is confirmed by the delays in aircraft deliveries by Boeing, “which are weighing on our growth, and the strike announcement will lead to a further delay.” By the end of the year the carrier expects to receive 10 new Boeing 737 Max aircraft.

More growth at Venice Marco Polo Airport

Ryanair is also interested in Venice, where easyJet recently announced the closure of its base. “In Veneto we have a base in Treviso and one in Venice: we were already negotiating with Marco Polo for further development and, after easyJet's announcement, these talks have accelerated. I am reasonably optimistic about our growth in Venice from April 2025, even if, once again, everything is subject to the arrival of new aircraft.” 

Aeroporti di Roma and the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) are promoting new travel experiences between Italy and the US.

An innovative booking platform

At this stage of expansive growth of intercontinental traffic at Fiumicino airport (18% in 2019 and 23% in 2023), Aeroporti di Roma's objective is to bring the potential of its booking platform FlyandvisitRome.com to a wider audience. The platform was launched recently to allow all NIAF members - over 20 million Italo-American citizens living in the United States - to find and purchase the most convenient tickets, supplementing their journey with a stop-over, a long stay of at least 24 hours, in the Eternal City.

Fast security checks and discounted shopping 

In addition to being able to book the QPass service for a fast way through security checks, NIAF members will be able to take advantage of Airport in the city, the check-in-off-airport service that allows them to check-in with their hold baggage, directly at Roma Termini station at no extra cost, collecting their bags directly at their destination. And there are also discounts and promotional campaigns in the airport shops.

“We have 39 daily departures to North America” 

“Italy and the United States have never been so close, - says Marco Troncone, managing director of Aeroporti di Roma, - with 12 daily departures on the Rome-New York route, making Fiumicino airport the third hub in Europe for the number of connections to the Big Apple after London and Paris, and before Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Madrid. We have a total of 39 daily departures from Fiumicino to 16 different destinations in North America, including the new ITA Airways routes to Chicago and Toronto.” 

Enriched travel experiences

“This partnership with Aeroporti di Roma is significant for our members and for their travels to Italy. Whether they are exploring their roots or simply admiring the beauty of Italy for the first time, this partnership will make their journey smoother and more enjoyable. We are excited to offer these exclusive benefits that will enrich travel experiences for our members,” says NIAF’s president Robert Allegrini.