If you have plans to travel to Italy in August, you might want to think twice about sticking exclusively to the major cities in the north of the country. Many fashion boutiques and restaurants in Milan and Florence will be essentially shut down while Italians are on official holiday. If shuttered retail districts don’t encourage you to flee city for » Read more

photograph courtesy of Christopher Coats   It can be difficult to find the right balance of cheap and delicious in the middle of Ronda, southern Spain’s plateau-set birthplace of bull fighting. With a city center overrun by lousy tourist menus, Ronda’s culinary selection can strike discerning Cheapos as limited. Hungry budget diners with a penchant for local » Read more

French soccer legend Zinedine Zidane briefly came out of retirement this past weekend to play in a charity match in Thailand. The match was organized by Adidas, one of Zidane’s many corporate sponsors. In France, the icon’s celebrity has barely tapered off since the infamous head-butt in last year’s World Cup final. Despite Zidane’s seemingly » Read more

Last week, German airline Condor announced that airfares for Winter 2007/2008 are already on sale. For Cheapos who like to plan trips long in advance, this sale announcement will come as a welcome opportunity to snap up cheap fares for next winter. Condor flies to a dizzying number of destinations across the world, including Grenada, » Read more

carbon offsets. Offsetting your carbon or climate footprint can help reduce global warming. We were very curious about just what these carbon offsets are, so we checked ’em out. Turns out they are basically contributions to energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other projects intended to make a difference in preserving natural resources and protecting the environment. » Read more

The Gers in France’s southwest is a land of rolling hills and medieval bastide towns. Utterly unspoiled by mass tourism and sparsely populated by farmers and secondary residents from Britain and the Netherlands, the region comes alive in summer with a series of top-notch music festivals, notably Jazz in Marciac and Tempo Latino in Vic-Fezensac. In » Read more

One of our favorite art writers, Jackie Wullschlager, delivers the goods in her column in today’s Financial Times. Today’s subject: “Renoir Landscapes,” an exhibit currently showing at London’s National Gallery. The highly recognized master Impressionist painter is a household name, of course, and his paintings are widely reproduced. The exhibition of 70-odd works on display » Read more

They’ve gone and done it again. Italy is once again on shaky ground, as far as government is considered at least. This past Wednesday, Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned following an unsuccessful vote.  Prodi resigned after several of his governmental coalition partners opposed plans to deploy troops in Afghanistan and expand a U.S. airbase on » Read more

Today easyJet announced two new routes: Dortmund-Edinburgh and Dortmund-Thessaloniki, bringing the number of destinations served by the airline in and out of Dortmund up to 13. Dortmund-Edinburgh begins on May 30, and Dortmund-Thessaloniki begins on May 31. The flights went on sale earlier today, though they’re so new that they’re not yet showing up on the easyJet route » Read more