Travel News You Can Use
By Judy Newell

Cuisine Connoisseurs
Dining in the Slammer

If you think getting into Paris’s hottest restaurants is hard, then you obviously haven’t eaten at the most exclusive restaurant in Italy— Fortezza Medicea in Volterra. Diners at the high-security prison restaurant (You read that right.) have to submit to a background check and receive a security clearance from Italy’s Department of Justice to snag a reservation at the 500-year-old facility just outside Pisa. 

The restaurant, staffed by Mafiosi, murderers and thieves, is an experiment in modern-day prison rehab. The idea is that reformed inmates can find work in the restaurant business upon release. 

In a cavernous space filled with simple wooden tables and benches, guards stand watch as sommelier Santolo, who’s serving 24 years for murder, pours Chianti. In the kitchen, chefs Massimo and Giuseppe prepare mini-frittatas served with fennel crisps, nonna Catozza (baked vegetables in a bread bowl), gnocchi with a fava bean purée, and a thick cheesecake garnished with chocolate. They also happen to be doing time for armed robbery and murder. 

If you can look past the paper plates and the plastic cutlery, the Southern Italian dishes from Puglia, Sicily and Naples (all hotbeds of mob activity) are rather delicious. 

There’s even entertainment—Bruno, a pianist doing life for murder, plays classical music in the background. Fortezza Medicea also has a theater company; members have performed cabarets and plays by Bertolt Brecht, Jean Genet and Shakespeare in the jail’s courtyard. The cost is US$34 per diner and you must allow at least two months for a reservation. 



News from Mexico
Mexico’s Riviera Nayarit offers golf packages

New golf packages to Mexico’s Riviera Nayarit feature championship courses designed by Jack Nicklaus, Robert Von Hagge, Jim Lipe (Nicklaus’ head designer) and Percy Clifford. By February 2008, two new golf courses designed by Greg Norman and Jack Nicklaus will open. 

One package is a four-night stay at the Vallarta Palace, with an all-inclusive meal plan, roundtrip airport transfers, US$25 voucher toward one round of golf per adult and choice of three courses. The package also offers unlimited tours, exploring Rancho Pancho on horseback, excursions offered by Channel Tour, City Tour and trip on the Sunset Cruise. The package includes hotel taxes and is available through December 15. Rates start at US$589 per person based on double occupancy. 

Mexico bets cultural tourism will pay off big

Mexico plans to invest US$90 million in cultural tourism to attract more high-end tourists, according to sources in the Ministry of Tourism. Cultural tourism, which includes visits to archaeological sites, museums, historical cities, cultural events and the like, currently brings in US$5 million annually.

The funds will be used in more than 180 projects to develop and improve tourist infrastructure. Projects include restoration of historic city centers, installation of lighting for archaeological sites, museums and installing telephone cables and other unsightly wires underground to improve the appearance of historic sites. 

Cultural tourism is widely thought to generate more revenue than mass tourism to beaches and resorts. It is also considered less destructive to the environment. Mexico receives more “cultural tourists” than any other country in Latin America and is in seventh place worldwide.

Sources: BHT, USA Today, Modern Agent, OSSN, Budget Travel, Travel Agent, Mexico Alert

Judy Newell, a writer and travel industry executive, heads the custom tour company Perfect Journeys that specializes in luxury and adventure travel. Contact her with comments or suggestions at JudyNewell_03@msn.com or go to her website www.PerfectJourneys.net.