The property was part of the many tussles between family and authorities that have tipified the last two decades, but now, after deals were made and restoration has been carried out, Puccini’s birthplace museum (home to a Steinway that he composed at) will reopen on the most important day in Lucca’s calendar, the day of the Volto Santo.

Official Puccini Museum site

Don’t hold your breath for a visit in 2011, however – an initial date for reopening is September 2011.

Holiday rentals in Lucca

There’s also concern about the damages cause by other, less traditionally propelled, craft plying the canals of Venice; motorised launches (and the bow waves they create) are causing the gondolas to be shunted up against the buildings lining the canals, with subsequent damage to the boats and their lacquered hulls.

Original press story
Accommodation in Venice, Italy

Perhaps slightly less impressive is the news that these faster trains will be running every two hours, but nonetheless, a pretty miserable service is about to be greatly improved, at last.

Accommodation in Tuscany

‘La vita di Michelangelo. Carte, poesie, lettere e disegni autografi’

An exhibition that, via signed works (poetry, sketches, letters, designs and other documents), attempts to trace the entire life of Michelangelo, with an emphasis on his works and influences in Siena.

Official site (Italian only)

Accommodation in Siena, Tuscany

The mayor of Florence disagrees.

Merits of claim aside, the notion that there are any lawyers working in Rome, in August, is possibly the most flawed aspect of the whole affair.

Link to Guardian newspaper piece
Florence accommodation
Ticket booking for Michelangelo’s David

The piece recounts the experiences of the english professor who can pretty much lay claim to having saved the tower from collapsing. Clearly a very sanguine man given the (insert adjective here) reaction of some locals … some Pisans have complained that by stopping the tower from collapsing he has ‘sterilised’ it and removed the ‘will it or won’t it’ frisson.

Pisa – holiday rentals and hotel accommodation

A photographic exhibition of the works of of Rino Barillari, part of the ‘Lucca Digital Photo Fest 2010′.

To quote:

The show in Lucca, Divas: From the Dolce Vita to the Latest Scoops, focuses on shots that Barillari has taken of glamorous women in Rome from the 1950s to today.

Among the work on display at Palazzo Guinigi are stolen snaps of princesses and actresses such as Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman and Sharon Stone.

Press release, in english
Official exhibition information

Lucca accommodation

… from the original article in la Reppublica, loosely translated as ‘a weekend with genius – art and science in the heart of the Tuscan countryside’. Which is exactly where the Leonardo museum is, in Vinci, roughly 60 kilometres from Florence.

The renovated and refurbished museum has example machines and designs from many of the areas in which Leonardo ‘dabbled’, from civil engineering, to weaponry, construction, defense, architecture, hydraulics and flight.

The museum is open every day (9.30 AM to 7.00 PM, 6.00 PM in the winter) and is located in the centre of the small Tuscan town of Vinci, in the Castello dei Conti di Guido.

The official site of the museum
Tuscany accommodation

The village was evacuated and flooded in 1953, and almost 150 people were moved out to make way for the lake (used in a hydro-electric shceme); there remain the stone skeletons of 28 houses and the church, and it has been traditional that at least once a decade the lake is emptied for maintenance. This hasn’t happened recently as the lake has not been reaching high anough levels of water.

Planned for opening at the end of Summer 2010 is what will be one of the longest rope/swing bridges in the world, know in Italian as a ‘Tibetan Bridge’, which should allow views down through the water to the lifeless village below.

Below are some links for finding accommodation in the area as well as a link to the local newspaper story (Italian only, but featuring an ‘artists impression’).

Local newspaper story

Garfagnana accommodation
Lucca accommodation
Tuscany accommodation