Jails, Homeless Shelters, & Soup Kitchens Turned Hotels

Call it coincidence, but in this month’s edition of concierge.com they’ve listed 10 hotels across the globe with a spooky past. (Coughs, can we say perfect timing for Halloween, hmm?) After going through each one, I noticed the history of some were creepier than others depending on what you tend to get spooked by. Shack up in a past crime den, nun’s cell, jail or my personal favorite an old soup kitchen. From the photos featured one might not ever know that these places have a tale to tell, but don’t let the looks deceive you. When you’re at rest in bed the howling you hear isn’t coming from the outside. It’s the cry of the mentally unhinged resident that stayed there before you. (Insert: horror laughter.) I’m only kidding – sort of.

Check out the Poor House: Hopper Hotel Et Cetera in Cologne, Germany which now sits as a cheap-chic boutique hotel, but was once a homeless shelter and soup kitchen. Heading to Puerto Rico? Stay at the old Carmelite convent, now one of San Juans’ most luxurious hotels was once home to 11 nuns that moved out in 1903. If you’re in need of prison time look at their picks out of Turkey and the U.K., just don’t say I didn’t try to warn you of their bone-chilling ambience.

Word for the Travel Wise (10/19/06)

I just spent some more time looking over the BBC online language courses and was playing around with the Italian guides thinking these are really awesome free tools. I’ve referenced them in several of the word features and I can’t describe how great they are. If you’re serious about learning a second or third language I urge you to start with their programs and see how far you can go with them before hiring a private tutor or anything.

Today’s word is an Italian word used in Italy:

sono strafelice – very, very, happy

Seeing how popular the language is there isn’t much difficulty finding learning resources on the web. I’m a little unsure about what’s going on with this June29 site, but they have three very simple lessons to get your learning motors going. You might find the BBC your one stop shop in handling your needs. Dictionaries, lessons, audio, and slang are all included. Distance learning is always recommended in my book. Check out some of these programs abroad where you can study in various cities across the country and even Lugano, Switzerland. A few links to study abroad are as follows: Amerispan, World Link Education, and ILUSS. Head over to this Italian Book Store for suggested text.

Past Italian words: qualcosa, dov’é, congratulazioni, un riccone/una riccona

Miss Sixty Hotel


With each day, the older I get, I notice my travel tastes gradually changing. I’ve always been a fan of budget accommodation and scoring the best deal for my pockets, but at the same time a hint of luxury wouldn’t hurt on occasion. As I’d flip through guidebooks often listing the world’s best hotels with a hefty price attached, I’d think “who pays this?” You know, like get out of your room and go see the city, but I’m learning that the room and the entire facility is what they’ve paid to experience. Anyhow, I’m babbling now.

What I want to point out is this awesome hotel pad as found over at TheCoolHunter. Here’s the scoop – the same funky Italian fashion designers who created denim pants that you can wear and look super hot in while strolling through Milan, have gone into the hotel biz by opening the Miss Sixty Hotel. So? Well, from what I’ve seen it looks pretty happening. 30 individual artists all had their hands in the various room design and overall it looks, feels and probably even has the taste of a 70’s vintage boutique. The room pictured up top is one of my personal fav’s or perhaps it just stood out with all the eerie vibes out this month for Halloween. Even if someone was murdered in the room, I’d stay there in a heartbeat.

Miss Sixty Hotel is located in the Italian seaside town of Riccione. With a location like that I say save your money for both the stay at this hot hotel and tack on a couple of extra days to get out and check out the town. Um, I call it – the best of both worlds.

Photo of the Day (10/10/2006)

I reached back a bit in the gadling Flickr site to find this Photo of the Day. The shot is captioned From the Bridge of Sighs and comes from the collection by Lost in Place. Through the little gaps there, you can just glimpse one of the canals of Venice, which I like. The perspective here is rather unique, I think, and the shot expresses some originality in composition and texture.

Italian Musician Bites Ear of Alitalia Airline Worker

Alright, go on ahead and file this one under: World Gone Mad.

These are the kind of news pieces you read and say to yourself “what on Earth was this person thinking?” Wait, they weren’t thinking. Apparently, Italian musician, Raffaele Artesi, who could not board his flight to Naples due to overbooking, assaulted an airline worker by almost biting his ear off. As any educated traveler might guess this did not allow the musician to board the plane in Turin. Instead he was arrested and charged with assaulting the airline worker, Davide Ruzza. It was said that Ruzza’s ear lobe was left hanging and that after 16 years of working for the airline he would change jobs. Poor guy doesn’t want to risk his ears, nose, or life for that matter over an overbooking.

In addition to Artesi’s beyond childish behavior with victim Ruzza another worker was said to have been slapped and punched by other band members.

via Sydney Morning Herald