The Americas Cup World Series Crews have been invited to compete in a opportunity to compete for €50,000 in prize money in the City of Venice Trophy on May 12-13, 2012. The invitational regatta, organized and announced at the beginning of May by the yacht club, Venice Compagnia della Vela, consists of five, 30-minute fleet races just outside Lido Island. This kicks off the week long of activiates and racing in this unmatched backdrop that the Americas Cup will visit twice.

The highlight will be Sunday’s long fleet race, which starts outside Lido Island and finishes just off St. Marks Square. The first team to finish at St. Marks Square will receive the City of Venice Trophy presented by Arzanà Navi as well as a cash prize of €30,000. The remaining €20,000 in prize money is distributed to the top three crews from the five 30-minute fleet races.

As you can imagine booking a hotel in Venice is crucial for these days, so get on it and enjoy the races!

Visit the Americas Cup official site to get more information on the sailing races in 2012.

1. Holy Week and Easter - In early April, there are many tourists that take advantage of the long Easter weekend as Easter Monday (Pasquetta) is a national holiday. The days leading up to Easter are known as the Holy week in Catholic tradition, so there are many church services open to the public and sitting in on a local sermon serves as a good way to take in the local culture. Read more about Easter in Venice.

2. Culture Week (aka Free Museum Week) - The Italian Ministry of Culture has a yearly culture week whereby many state-run museums all over Italy open their doors to the public and admission fees are waived! Yes, that’s right, free museum entries! This year the lucky days are April 14-22, 2012.  Here is the official Italian Ministry’s brochure with all the corresponding museums participating in Culture week in the Veneto region. Sorry that it’s in Italian, but to give you an idea you can visit these Venice museums for free: Accademia Art Gallery, the Island of San Servolo’s museums, Torcello Island’s Museum, Palazzo Loredan, the Archives and Piovego Room in the Doge’s Palace, the National Archeological Museum in St. Mark’s Square, the Oriental Art Museum, G. Franchetti Gallery at Ca’ d’Oro, Palazzo Grimani Museum, Historic Naval Museum of Venice, and the San Sebastiano Church in Dorsoduro. Click here for more information on the official Ministry of Culture site.

3. Festa di San Marco and Liberation Day - April 25th is both when Saint Mark, Venice’s patron saint, is revered on this day with a gondoliers’ regatta, with commemorations of the saint at Saint Mark’s Basilica, and festivities in Saint Mark’s Square. Traditionally, men give their “special” girl the “bocolo,” the bloom of the red rose. In some cases, Venetian boys will give a single rose to their mothers on this day. In terms of Liberation Day, April 25th  also remains the anniversary on which Venice and the rest of Italy were liberated at the end of World War II.

Entrance to Venice: Doge's Palace and Marciana Library

4. Various Art & Musical Events – Springtime offers a variety of art exhibits that open in April. They vary from photography exhibits to theatre. Some of them include the Diana Freeland Exhibit at Palazzo Fortuny, “A Century of Venetian Beads” exhibit at the Murano Glass Museum,  and “Photography in Japan” at Palazzo Franchetti. Check out the full listing of events below. You can also purchase your Venice museum tickets in advance here.

Easter Holiday: In Venice and the rest of Italy, being a super Catholic country, the Easter holiday begins on Good Friday, which this year falls on April 6, 2012. Over the weekend, there will increasingly be more tourists which will fill the city and you may want to witness some religious processions or the Easter church services first hand in some of the smaller neighborhood churches to get more of the local feel. But on Easter Sunday (Pasqua), take a trip to Basilica San Marco (no tickets needed, just a nice wait in line) to experience the grandiose Easter mass.  While Good Friday isn’t a national holiday, Easter Monday called “Pasquetta”, or “little Easter,” is equally as important as Easter Sunday, so they made that Monday a national holiday. Easter Sunday is a time to gather round with the family, but Easter Monday is usually spent with friends. Now that’s a good way to balance your time!

Travel during Easter: In terms of traveling during Easter weekend, remember that many other European countries share the same practice and there may be many more visitors than usual with this long weekend, so be sure to book a hotel room and Alitalia railway tickets in advance. Some restaurants will be closed as many are family owned, so it depends on the family decision to stay open or closed. However, in a place like Venice, there will always be some restaurants open, so be sure to do your research for an authentic Venetian restaurant and call ahead for reservations. Many Venice attractions will be closed or have limited hours on Easter Sunday and many are regularly closed on Mondays, so take that into account when thinking of visiting Venice just over this holiday weekend.

Easter Events: Finally, you can always enjoy a good opera concert or classical music concert over the Easter weekend after taking in the city by day.

Buona Pasqua!

Here are the cities that fly to and from Venice:

• Alghero, Alicante, Bilbao, Bordeaux, Brindisi, Budapest, Cagliari, Corfu, Heraklion/Crete, Kros, Krakow, Lampedusa, Malaga, Mykonos, Olbia, Palermo, Porto, Reggio Calabria, Rhodes, Santiago de Compostela, Santorini, Split, Thessaloniki, and Valencia.

Their interface is also easy to use with a calendar view so you don’t have to keep inserting new dates!

Screenshot from Volotea's Reservations Page

The Boeing 717 will be the foundation for new European low-cost airline, Volotea, with a long-term lease deal announced today between The Boeing Company and the airline’s management.

“The 717 is ideally suited for the market where Volotea hopes to thrive. The twinjet is a good neighbor – it is fuel efficient and easier on the environment than its competitors. These are important concerns for the European market, and the 717 addresses them better than any other product in its market niche,” said Thomas Hansen, Boeing Capital director of asset management.

Total number of routes it plans to operate this summer now increases to 76, with 53 destinations across Europe.

Check out some of their other routes:

Granada – Mahon (starting 16JUN12 – 09SEP12) – 3 weekly

Oviedo/Asturias – Malaga (15JUN12 – 07SEP12) – 2 weekly (3 weekly eff 02JUL12)

Palma Mallorca – Zaragoza  (eff 02JUN12) – 2 weekly (3 weekly 30JUL12 – 09SEP12)

Ibiza – Bari (29JUN12 – 07SEP12) – 2 weekly

Ibiza – Granada (17JUN12 – 09SEP12) – 3 weekly

Ibiza – Lille (30JUN12 – 09SEP12) – 2 weekly (3 weekly eff 30JUL12)

Ibiza – Lisbon (16JUN12 – 08SEP12) – 2 weekly

Ibiza – Oviedo/Asturias (15JUN12 – 07SEP12) – 2 weekly (3 weekly from 02JUL12)

Ibiza – Palermo (17JUN12 – 08SEP12) – 2 weekly

Ibiza – Santander (15JUN12 – 08SEP12) – 2 weekly

Ibiza – Santiago de Compostela (15JUN12 – 08SEP12) – 3 weekly

Ibiza – Strasbourg (02JUL12 – 06SEP12) – 2 weekly

Ibiza – Valladolid (01JUL12 – 09SEP12) – 2 weekly

Ibiza – Verona (29JUN12 – 09SEP12) – 2 weekly (3 weekly eff 30JUL12)

Ibiza – Vigo (16JUN12 – 09SEP12) – 2 weekly (3 weekly eff 25JUN12)

Ibiza – Zaragoza 1(7JUN12 – 09SEP12) – 3 weekly

Mahon – Santander (30JUN12 – 08SEP12) – 2 weekly

Mahon – Santiago de Compostela 30JUN12 – (08SEP12) – 2 weekly (3 weekly eff 30JUL12)

Mahon – Verona 29JUN12 – 07SEP12 2 weekly

Palma Mallorca – Bari (29JUN12 – 07SEP12) – 2 weekly

Palma Mallorca – Lille (30JUN12 – 08SEP12) – 2 weekly

Palma Mallorca – Palermo (01JUL12 – 09SEP12) – 2 weekly

Palma Mallorca – Strasbourg (02JUL12 – 06SEP12) – 2 weekly

Vigo – Seville (16JUN12 – 09SEP12) – 2 weekly (3 weekly eff 25JUN12)

Zaragoza – Malaga (17JUN12 – 09SEP12) – 3 weekly

“Volotea’s goal is to forge new and efficient air connections between Europe’s small and mid-sized cities currently not well served by direct flights. We see the Boeing 717′s capabilities as the best solution for us in filling this need, and we see the partnership with Boeing as the right one for our success,” said Carlos Munoz, Volotea’s founder and CEO.

Currently BA has flights from Venice Marco Polo to both Heathrow and Gatwick, but starting September, the airline will also add a route to Venice from London City Airport.

Flight BA8479 will depart London City at 11:00am on weekdays and 3:00pm on Sundays, arriving at 14.05 and 18.05 respectively. The return leg, BA8480, will leave Venice at 14.45 on weekdays and 19.00 on Sundays, landing back into London City at 3:50 and 8:05pm respectively.

I personally think that it might be more convenient than Ryanair which currently flies between Stansted and Treviso airport (located about 20 miles from Venice city centre). The other two airlines that fly to London from Venice are Easyjet and Monarch which operate between Gatwick and Marco Polo.

Check out the Discounts & Promotions page to see which booking sites are offering additional travel discounts!

What you have to do:

You have until March 31st to submit a short, story-driven video. There’s no entry fee. It can be any format  (short film, web-series episode, TV pilot, etc.) and any genre. In June 2012, audiences around the world will vote, sending 10 deserving storytellers to open the 2012 Venice Film Festival where a Grand Prize Winner will be be rewarded with a $500,000 grant to create a new work, produced by Ridley Scott, Michael Fassbender and a world class team.

How:

Content creators around the world are invited to submit a 15-minute, story-driven video of any format, style and genre, to www.Youtube.com/yourfilmfestival.

When:

Submissions, which open February 2, 2012 and close on March 31, 2012, will be reviewed by Scott Free and narrowed down to 50 semi-finalists from around the world in the summer of 2012.

“Short filmmaking is exactly where I started my career 50 years ago, so to be helping new filmmakers find an entry point like this into the industry is fantastic,” says Ridley Scott.  ”It’s great to be partnering with YouTube again for this global search for the next generation of exciting filmmakers.”

Alberto Barbera, the newly named artistic director of The Venice Film Festival, said that they were excited to be working in partnership with YouTube and Ridley Scott. “The festival has such a wonderful and rich history with launching great talent. We’re thrilled to remain on the cutting edge and let the world participate in our festival,” said Barbera.

What are you waiting for? This may be a great way to use your creative skills and get a free flight to Venice!

With an average of half a million tourists a day, the city remains over-crowded most of the time. A number of airlines from budget to luxury provide regular flights to Venice, including Air Canada, Iberia, and British Airways. Here are the three mantras to book tickets to Venice at cheap airfares:

Weekdays: Plan your travel on weekdays and not on a weekend. Most of tourists plan their vacations on weekends so that they don’t have to take long leaves from work places. Owing to more passenger traffic on weekends, airline tickets tend to be higher on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Advance Purchase: Purchasing airline tickets in advance and not waiting for the last minute travel deals during the high tourist season is the best idea to get cheap airfare deals. The best time to visit Venice is during the Venice Carnival and in the months of April, May, June and early September. Airfares for Venice flights tend to rise as the travel date approaches because the fewer the seats vacant, the higher the plane ticket cost is.

Compare and then Purchase: While booking your airline tickets, compare the airfares for same flights on the websites of number of online travel companies. Those having contract fares on flights to Venice may offer discount airfares. If it is a matter of few dollars only, contact your regular travel service provider to honor the same air fare rather than moving towards a travel agency new to you.

So if you are planning to visit Venice, it is advised to book your airline tickets at least 30-60 days in advance and to save more on your travel cost book flights on weekdays.

Thanks to our guest author: Rachna, a blogger of CheapOair.

Such a move would mean that cruise passengers no longer would sail into or out of the San Marco Basin or the scenic Giudecca Canal, which are both within shouting distance of venerable landmarks such as the Piazza San Marco and St. Mark’s Basilica.

An agreement was reached in December between the Venice Port Authority and the city of Venice to study the creation of the channel, which could be completed within 18 months. The proposal gained a new urgency following the recent cruise accident.

Venice is a Unesco World Heritage Site, and the group called on the Italian government to “act quickly to develop alternative plans for maritime traffic” around Venice.

In a letter to the Italian environment minister, Unesco assistant director-general for culture Francesco Bandarin wrote, “The tragic accident [involving the Concordia] reinforces long-standing concerns over the risk that large cruise liners pose to sites inscribed on [our] World Heritage list, particularly the Venetian Lagoon and the Basin of San Marco.”

Given the fragile structure of the medieval city, Unesco warned, the ships “cause waves that erode the foundations of buildings.”

Cruise companies did not respond to queries requesting their views on the proposed route change.

Cruise ships currently enter the Lagoon of Venice from the northeast and travel west through the San Marco Basin and the Giudecca Canal to the sprawling Marittima cruise port, in the far southwest corner of the city.

More than 20 major cruise lines visit the city each year. In 2011, cruise ships brought 1.7 million cruise passengers into Venice.

What are your thoughts on changing the Venice docking sites?

Gondola Ride

While it might not be the most intimate moment, with the gondolier just behind you steering the way and gawking tourists taking pictures of you from bridges, there is something elegant and charming about floating your way through the city. As you sit on the gondola next to your beloved under a blanket, enjoy the sounds of the city and don’t think about paying the 80€ for the 40min. ride. There are some less expensive ways to go on a gondola in the Venice for Rookies travel guide.

Dancing in St. Mark’s Square by night

Three of Venice’s most-loved attractions are in one spot: St. Mark’s Basilica, the Campanile (the bell tower in front of the basilica) and the Doge’s Palace (or Palazzo Ducale, the ancient home of Venetian ruling power, now a museum) next door to the square. To really dazzle your partner, grab your sweetie for an impromptu dance under the moon. The illuminated buildings and outdoor orchestras make for a fantastic backdrop.

Kiss under the Bridge of Sighs

The Ponte dei Sospiri or ‘Bridge of Sighs’ is one of the most beautiful sights in Venice, a Baroque limestone bridge connecting ancient prison cells with the Doge’s Palace interrogation rooms. Lord Byron christened it so because its view would be the last picture of Venice convicts would see before imprisonment and a probable death sentence. The Venetian legend is that if you kiss under the bridge that will seal the deal for a lifelong life of love and happiness for the couple.

Eat Seafood

Venice is a seafood city, with traditional Venetian dishes including clams with parsley, creamed white cod and black squid ink pasta, and fresh seafood, simply cooked, is always a fabulous choice. “Sarde en saor”, sardines marinated in olive oil and vinegar, is another Venetian “must-try”. Load up on these aphrodisiac foods! The big meal, as is the case throughout Italy, in Venice is the noon meal. Dining out can be quite extravagant, with 3 or 4 course meals not uncommon. For the visitor, be prepared to spend about 2 to 3 times what you might pay, for example, a hearty lunch in the U. S.

Good travel advice on avoiding tourist traps are to leave the crowds and take a wander down less well-known alleys – here lay the places to stumble across the real deal in Venetian cooking. Also beware of restaurants with menus in multiple languages, only tourists speaking English, and ones where the waiter is basically trying to carry you inside.

Visit a Neighboring Island

The beauty of Venice is that you are just a simple boat ride away from a total change of scenery. Lido has palm trees and a 14km stretch of beach which can even be romantic in the wintertime since you have it all to yourself. A lagoon day trip to Murano, the home of glass, is a slower paced island full of glass blowing factories where you can watch a free glass-blowing demonstration. To save on money, catch a vaporetto over and take a stroll through the town’s winding, cobbled alleys. While there are tours that take you to three islands, I feel that Torcello has too much renovation going on, so you can skip that and head straight to Burano. With its colourful houses and lace-making boutiques (a specialty to Burano as well as their cookies), it feels pretty and quirky: the perfect place for a romantic stroll.

Looking for a place to stay on Valentine’s Day?

There are so many types of lodging to choose from, but avoid Mestre (Venice’s mainland) and choose somewhere in historic Venice. Here are some quick links based on the lodging type.

Apartments in Venice
Hotels in Venice
Hostels in Venice

Although Venetians, perhaps, don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day as exuberantly as Americans, the spirit of Romance is always simmering just below the surface in Venice. In fact, what other city in the world has developed an entire industry to Love and Romance? Fleets of gondolas ply the pungent waterways, affording lovers a velvet encased cocoon from which to re-kindle the flame, while taking in the wondrous edifices and street scenes of “Venezia”. Ah bella Venezia!

Buon San Valentino!

I bet you are pumped to experience the Venice Carnival from Feb.11-21, 2012! Part of enjoying the various historical events throughout the city is to party in a palace!!

Here is a party that is not to be missed on February 17th: Decadenza

Where: San Gallo Theatre, 1097 San Marco district in Venice (aka Teatro San Gallo) just one minute from Piazza San Marco.

When: Feb. 17, 2012 from 9:30 PM – 4 AM.

The annual Decadenza party brings together an international crowd of Europeans and the creme de la creme of Venice for a night of modern decadence mixed with some the best traditional elements of the Carnival of Venice. Guests are invited to a buffet dinner starting at 9:30 PM, followed by an after party starting at 12 AM. DJs, including Alexandre Toesca and Marco Vistosi, will keep costumed partygoers on the dance floor until 4 AM. There will also be performances by Bohemian Circus and Zigan Cafe Electro Trio. Dress Code: Costumes required and decadence and drama are strongly encouraged.

Here is the Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/events/350517471634068/