Archive for October 3rd, 2009

The Best Way to See San Francisco is from the

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

The Best Way to See San Francisco is from the Air

If you have plans of visiting San Francisco you really should consider seeing it from a birds eye view. There are many ways in which you can do this, but few, if any are more romantic than doing so from the basket of a hot air balloon. In fact, if you’ve never been in a balloon before, this is a great place to start.

There are many tours that are offered and each one offers spectacular views and a feeling of weightless wonder that is unrivaled by any other feeling on earth. Imagine watching, as everything on the ground gets smaller and feeling completely at ease with the process. It’s a truly amazing way to travel for those who have never experienced it. Young and old alike will thoroughly enjoy the awe of this particular form of travel.

Some of the tours linger along the coastline while others will take you up into wine country. You can even charter tours that will combine the hot air balloon excursion with ground transportation and accommodations at one of the many area bed and breakfast inns for a nice romantic weekend get away in California’s wine country.

Another great way to enjoy the beautiful views that abound in the bay area is to go hang gliding. There are several places in the area that not only offer lessons but will also take you up with a trained professional after cursory instructions. This allows you to enjoy the sensation and freedom that hang gliding affords without spending days or even weeks taking classes before you ever get to experience the sensation of soaring with the birds.

If that isn’t enough to get your adrenaline going and give you the best possible view of this great city, you can always try skydiving. Like hang gliding, sky diving offers tandem drops that mean that you can actually experience the freefall and enjoy the serene beauty of San Francisco without actually going through a rigorous training regiment. If you want the ride of a lifetime to make your trip more memorable, this is definitely the way to go.

Of course, there are those who prefer flight by mechanical means. There is absolutely no shame in that. The good news is that there are a couple of great ways to take in the scenery with machinery as well. There’s nothing to say that you can’t make your mechanical experience just as daring as any of the other experiences available. You could view the great scenes of Frisco from the cockpit of a biplane. In addition to the awesome scenery, you are perfectly free to book on of the aerobatic biplane rides, which will be best planned before meals rather than after them.

In addition to these exciting ways to tour the San Francisco area, you can always choose one of the many helicopter tours instead. This offers what many consider a more sane, I mean safe, mode of transportation while still providing the birds eye view that simply cannot be rivaled from the ground. There are many tours that are available and each one offers something exciting for the adventurous ones that choose to take them.

Each of these modes of transportation can be found in the San Francisco area and each one offers something valuable to those that will find them interesting. Not only the views but also the experiences in and of themselves will make this trip a memorable trip. Even if it isn’t your cup of tea, remember that someone you are traveling with could find one of them to be the memory of a lifetime and what greater gift can you really give someone?

I hope, more than anything, I’ve planted the seeds in your mind that will open your eyes to seeing this great city from an entirely different perspective. There is nothing quite as magnificent as enjoying the city lights from the sky or seeing endless miles of nature stretching out before you. I truly believe there is no better way to enjoy San Francisco than from the sky.

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Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

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Seeing Art on Your Italy Vacation

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

Italy is one of the art centers of the world. This is the home of the Renaissance and the world famous greats like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. During your vacation in Italy you will find that art here has strong ties to religion. Several of the greatest painters also painted numerous religious subject matters and were often commissioned by the Church to paint murals.

If you are in the Tuscan city of Florence while on vacation in Italy, you may visit the Leonardo da Vinci Museum in the town called Vinci where he was born. The museum is in a medieval castle called the Conti Guidi Castle. The purpose of the museum is mainly to serve as a biographical memoir of the great artist and to describe his hometown and places of interest. There is also a great library here that holds almost everything that has ever been written about Leonardo da Vinci as a man, as an artist and about his pieces. You can get a guided tour of this museum if you happen to be in Tuscany for your Italy vacation.

If you are in Florence you must also go to the Uffizi Gallery. This place holds the greatest collection of paintings from the Italian renaissance period. Many of the painters from that time lived in Florence. This town has beautiful landscapes and rolling hills and it is no wonder that the great artists were so inspired by living in this region. An Italy vacation in this area will allow you to visit this museum and see famous works of art such as Michelangelo’s “Doni Tondo” Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Annunciation” and Raphael’s “Maddonna of the Goldfinch.” An Italy vacation here will be a true feast for your artistic soul as you will not only get to see the masterpieces of the greats but you will also get to walk the streets that they walked on.

If you are in Milan for your Italy vacation, you may want to visit the church called Santa Maria delle Grazie. This is the church that houses the famous mural painting of Leonardo da Vinci’s called “The Last Supper.” His other famous painting “Mona Lisa” sits in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The Santa Maria delle Grazie church is protected by UNESCO as a world heritage site of outstanding cultural benefit to humanity. It also has some very unique and beautiful architecture designed by Guiniforte Solari in the 1400s. It is said that during World War II one of the bombs dropped by the British and American planes hit this important church but the famous mural was saved because the whole wall had been sand-bagged.

Although it does not feature art in the traditional sense of the word, the Archeological Museum of Naples is one of the greatest museums in the world of its kind and holds some of the most important findings from Pompeii and Herculaneum. You should strongly consider visiting this museum for a guided tour if you are in Naples for your Italy vacation.

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