travel

by Angela Rocco DeCarlo On recent visit "home" we went immediately to again visit The Art Institute of Chicago to see the John Singer Sargent and Chicago's Gilded Age exhibit...and so should you. It is a world-class museum with the latest technology to make all welcome - including TacTiles and Touch Gallery for the visually impaired.  There was a John Singer Sargent exhibit in 1986, which I attended, and it was fabulous. The printed press kit was so beautiful I've kept it. So I was pleased to again be able to view Sargent's beautiful luminous paintings.  Additionally, visitors enjoy the Impressionist Gallery, which features well-recognized master paintings such as Renoir's "Two Sisters" (On the Terrace),  Seurat's "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" and other great images. I like this gallery better than the major Impressionist museums in Paris.  The 68 Thorne Miniature Rooms enable glimpses into European interiors from the late 13th century to the 1930s. It is charming and should be seen with or without children. The Art Institute offers massive amounts of art from antiquity to modern genres. It is one of my  favorite places - at once enlightening as well as soothing.  The Sargent exhibit ends September 30th so there's still time to see it. Chicago Art Institute 111 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, Ill 60603 phone 312-443-3600 Admission: Adults $25; Seniors$19; Child - age 13 & ...

by Angela Rocco DeCarlo copyright 2017 Laguna Beach, California, resembles the Italian Amalfi Coast - at least to we Italian Americans. So naturally, we wanted to enjoy it with our four DeCarlo grandchildren, aged 12 to 19. Getting them together was a feat we relished. However, we had to be sure there was something for everyone to enjoy. So we concocted an afternoon itinerary which included diving into the frothy surf,  lunch as Las Brisas, with a quick detour next door to the Laguna Art Museum. Actually, I had read a review of the "Ben Messick: Memories of Los Angeles" exhibit and thought it would be wonderful to see and perfect for our little artist, Serritella. But how to entice the baseball and hockey players, Sam and Andrew,  as well as college girl, Michelle? The genius of our plan included the "Holy Grail" of any Laguna Beach visit - a parking space - with apologies to the illustrious legend. While Laguna is gorgeous, traffic and parking are ugly. So we zeroed in on lunch at an old favorite, Las Brisas restaurant, with its valet parking lot and were perfectly located to do everything easily without lost time or much walking. I really appreciated the front desk ...

Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center Anaheim, CA By Angela Rocco DeCarlo "Downton Abbey," one of the most successful television shows, is set in a fictional Edwardian English castle, awash with nobles, paid-servants and enormous upheavals due to war, jealousy and financial ruin. The Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center, Anaheim, CA, is presenting an exhibition of the lovely wardrobe of the show. Seeing the clothing up close is delightful. In every detail the show's six seasons evoked the volcanic disruptions brought on by World War I and its political, societal and financial changes. The Roaring Twenties and the Jazz Age took woman from their corseted floor-length dresses to loose shifts exposing naked shoulders and legs - shocking. "In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking, now God knows, anything goes." From Noel Coward's song, "Anything Goes." The Downton Abbey era is illuminated through the skillful Julian Fellows' scripts and an array of outstanding good-looking actors who enchanted television viewers. The gorgeous period clothing charmed all. "Dressing Downton - Changing Fashion for Changing Times" featuring nearly 40 of the original garments designed and fitted to the individual actors, can be seen at Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center, Anaheim, California, until May 11. It then ...

by Greg Morabito  A lot of New York restaurants are hard to get into, but only a handful of places in the city require background checks, referrals, or special membership cards to enter. Here's a guide to 10 private New York bars and restaurants, with information about where to go and who to talk to if you want a table. 10) Tiro a Segno: This private Italian-American social club, which occupies three brownstones on MacDougal Street, has something you won't find at any other restaurant in New York City: an active, wood-paneled shooting range in the basement. Upstairs, there's a bar and several dining rooms serving a wide array of traditional Italian American food. Tiro A Segno (which means "shoot the target") is strictly members-only, although they sometimes bend the rules if you want to buy-out one of the banquet rooms for a large event. But if you want to become a member for life, you must be nominated by a current member, and it certainly helps if someone in your family is Italian. For more on the club's 124 year legacy, check out their official site. (Photo) 9) Brooklyn Edible Social Club: About twice a month, this culinary collectiveholds small dinner parties ...

By Mark DeCarlo The holidays are a great time to travel to Italy. The crowds are small, the prices are low, but so are the temperatures. If you're not looking for a sun-splashed beach week on the Amalfi Coast, this may be the perfect time to finally take your romantic trip to Italia. Londra Palace Outdoor Trattoria in mid-summer swing Regardless of when you go, no trip to the cradle of modern civilization would be complete without visiting Venice, the most incomprehensively amazing city on the planet. Actually, it's not a city. Venezia is 118 small islands linked by bridges and traversed by gondolas. It's also a great place to walk -- virtually every rambling alley leads to a crooked corner that reveals a new treasure: food, drinks, art, architecture, vistas -- romantic does not begin to describe this improbable world apart. The Republic of Venice has been on the map since the Middle Ages, by virtue of its location, and has stayed relevant because... it's freakin' VENICE! No other city in Europe, or elsewhere, features its same amalgam of water, stone, wine and cuisine. For holiday or honeymoon, the romance and sublime feel of this city is beyond description. We researched and studied everything we ...

About the only thing missing from Odysseo, the mesmerizing equine show from Cavalia, the Cirque du Soleil-style horse show, is Pegasus, the winged horse. Stabled in the huge white tent - looks like a marvel of engineering, at the 405 and 133 in Irvine, CA, we, together with our younger grandchildren were entranced by the grace and charm of humans and their mighty steeds in this exciting show. We had seen Cavalia when it was in the same location in 2007  with our older grandchildren. I wanted to see it again and it was well worth a second look. There is a certain magic in watching a 2,000 pound animal dance gracefully. The brilliance of Odysseo's designers in having a beautifully formed horse shown on a hill in the distance, illuminated in black silhouette, was stunning. Everyone has seen horses execute nimble movements, but this depiction of control, training and charm was unique due to the staging. The audience was so enchanted it's doubtful few noticed stage front becoming a shallow pond. A wonderful effect as riders then took their mounts to gently splash in the little stream. The show begins slowly enough, to give the audience a chance to review the numerous animals in a pastoral scene, before set exercises begin. I found the white horse close drill fascinating as they ...

by Angela Rocco DeCarlo Let's face it. A tea party is a fantasy experience. It is presented in a frou-frou environment and the food can best be described as "doll food." Often good, but diminutive. Nonetheless, it is my favorite meal, aside from Chicago deep dish pizza. As my granddaughter Serritella Danielle DeCarlo's "Golden Birthday" was upon me I felt a tea party was the perfect way to celebrate her. She became eleven on July eleventh. An artist, dancer and writer who looks like she stepped out of a fresco in ancient Pompeii, not far from where her great-grandmother, Vita Serritella, was born in 1903, before coming to America in 1911. I began my search for a proper tea room in the city of Orange...a local place fit the bill, alas, no openings and parking is quite dicey. Tried polling pals for suggestions, but then my husband searched online and found Pamela's Tea Room, Garden Grove, CA, which was the best location at the 405 and 22, for guests coming from Huntington Beach, Long Beach and LA. It turned out to be a marvelous find. Having taken tea at many swanky places I can say when done well lit is a lot of fun, especially if you favor a light repast with a variety of textures and flavors in ...

Ground Breaks for New York City’s Virgin Hotel VOA begins construction on the 412,000-square-foot Virgin Hotel in NoMad The VOA-designed Virgin Hotel will be located on Broadway between 30th and 29th Streets. Last Friday, ground broke in Manhattan for the world’s second Virgin Hotel. Designed by the New York–based architecture firm VOA, in collaboration with developer the Lam Group, the 412,000-square-foot tower will contain 465 guest rooms and offer roughly 70,000 square feet of retail space at its base. With a slim façade that grows larger through sections that jut out from its sides, the 39-story building will bring a flash of modernity to the historic NoMad neighborhood. “Where the building appears to be shifting to the sides, we deducted some bulk out of the corners of the structure so we could reuse the floor area higher up,” says Brian McFarland, VOA’s lead architect on the project. “This allowed us the opportunity to create more corner windows at a higher elevation so those rooms could enjoy views the lower rooms wouldn’t allow.” Virgin Hotel in NoMad Virgin Hotels, a division of Richard Branson's Virgin Group, plans to roll out hotels of distinct designs in various cities around the world, and as such, “the Virgin Hotel ...

https://youtu.be/Y7AxRA8kCX8 The Travel Adventure Show 2016 will be at the Pennsylvania Convention Center all weekend long – from March 19 to March 20. Make sure you get your tickets now, because you won’t want to miss this exciting event. Click Here to get those tickets now: http://travelshows.com/philadelphia/. Our team is so pumped they’ve even come up with a list for visitors of the top three (3) things to do at the #PhillyTravelShow. As you walk around the exhibition floor, we hope this list helps direct you on exactly how to find the best ways to plan your ultimate dream vacation. Talk to the Experts At America’s Favorite Travel Show, you’ll be able to speak directly with the travel experts that represent hundreds of the top destinations from around the world. You can plan your next escape with renowned travel agents, customize your trip preferences and learn about the different experiences and excursions at each location, and collect the “inside knowledge” so you can travel like a “local” when you get to your destination. You’ll receive local knowledge and travel advice on where to go, what to do, where to stay and how to ensure that you have a personalized travel experience. At http://travelshows.com/shows/philadelphia/plan-your-experience/, you can ...

Time to hit the road… with Samantha Brown, Peter Greenberg, Patricia Schultz and more.   Spring is the traditional time of year when we shake off the sludge of winter and start thinking about… spring break. Trouble is, if you don’t start thinking about travel UNTIL spring, you’re going to pay more and have fewer options than if you plan ahead. But if you’re in the Philadelphia area, you’re in luck… because the world is coming to you.   A Fork On The Road will be at the Philadelphia Travel Show this weekend at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Arch Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this Saturday, March 19th & 20th. The event will take place from 10am - 5pm (EST) on Saturday and 11am - 4pm (EST) on Sunday. Be sure to enter our contests - we will be giving two lucky winners a Hotel Stay each in Cancun, MX for two adults and two children. So, make sure you stop by Booth #226 to say hello to our team and learn more about these awesome contests and prizes. Learn more about the contests at http://www.aforkontheroad.com/contests Over the last twelve years and 61 shows, this well-established event has become the premier consumer marketing platform in ...