My latest travel stories came out today in the New York magazine 2013 Spring Travel Planner: ”Unexpected ways of seeing the world, where the transport is as memorable as the trip itself.” When I had Marguerite I was working on a few stories for their 2010 Winter Travel feature and remember emailing the copy editor from the hospital. With baby brother expected in a week, we were cutting it close this time, too!
Here’s my first in the package, about Rome…
Rome by Lamborghini:
Zoom past tourist-choked ruins in and around the Italian capital.
Travel like an aristocrat, jumping from zero to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, when you’re behind the wheel of one of Italy’s most iconic sports cars, a $250,000 V10 Lamborghini Gallardo. Rent that, or one of four Ferraris or Porsches, by the day or the week from Palazzo Manfredi (from $1,100; palazzomanfredi.com), a boutique hotel near the Colosseum. (General manager Bruno Papaleo offers gratis driving tutorials to guests, provided they’re at least 30 years old and possess a valid license.) To ease into Italy’s chaotic car culture, head twenty miles east of Rome to peaceful Tivoli, where the magnificent Italian Renaissance gardens of the sixteenth-century Villa D’Este (from $10; Piazza Trento; villadestetivoli.info) await. After listening to a concerto on the estate’s recently repaired Baroque organ fountain, settle in under the wisteria-covered terrace of Ristorante Sibilla (Via Della Sibilla 50; ristorantesibilla.com) for a $60 prix fixe lunch including the primi, like burrata ravioli. Another day, seek out contemporary architecture in northern Rome’s Flaminio neighborhood, recently revitalized thanks to the Zaha Hadid–designed contemporary-art center Maxxi ($14 admission; Via Guido Reni 4A; fondazionemaxxi.it) and Renzo Piano’s multifunctional arts complex, the Auditorium Parco della Musica (Viale Pietro de Coubertin 30; auditorium.com). Or drive north to sample oyster, celery, habanero, and other savory gelati at Claudio Torcè’s ten-month-old Il Gelato Bistrò (Circ. Ne Trionfale 11/13; 39-06-3972-5949). Use Palazzo Manfredi as a base (from $520) or crash at the year-old, 116-room Gran Meliá Rome (from $450; melia.com), right on the banks of the Tiber River and five minutes from the Vatican.
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