Monday 16th July 2018

Maronti Beach and Sant'Angelo

Afternoon everyone. What a difference a week makes. It wasn't so long ago that all anybody could think about was the football but with England's sad demise it all fizzled out somewhat. Congratulations to France for winning it and also Croatia for getting as far as they did, arguably the bigger achievement considering the size of the country. On a personal note, World Cup fever was immediately placed with regular old-fashioned fever which isn't nearly as nice but I'm happy to have seen the back of that now and we start afresh with a new week. In terms of Ischia Review's clientele and visitors to the website, these next two weeks are the busiest of the year, usually peaking around 22nd July after steadily rising since January 1st. It works differently for most other businesses on the island who have a largely Italian-dominated clientele whose busiest two weeks are those either side of 15th August but whichever way you look at it, things are hotting up. I'm not even going to take advantage of that to link to the weather as I usually might, because we've got some rather hot talent (work with me here) on the island at the moment because of the Ischia Global Film & Music Fest. The star that seems to have grabbed most attention so far is Lily Collins. The actress and daughter of British musician Phil has been given the full paparazzi treatment since she arrived at Hotel La Regina Isabella in Lacco Ameno. Another big name here at the moment is Quincy Jones who's here to receive a lifetime achievement awards while I've also heard rumours of the likes of Antonio Banderas, Samuel L Jackson, Jeremy Irons and Terry Gilliam to name just a few being here right now. More than a rumour was Rod Stewart's appearance last week, spotted having dinner at the Miramare e Castello Hotel's restaurant. Ischia Global is a film and music festival with screenings of films taking place in Lacco Ameno and Forio from now until Sunday 22nd July. Please please please feel free to post any celeb-selfies on our Facebook page if you're lucky enough to bump into any of these "hot" stars - which leads me nicely on to the weather.....Right now there's a bit of wind around, making the sea a bit bumpy in places but other than that it's just boring old sunshine I'm afraid. We're still some way short of reaching the really high temperatures, over the next week it'll range from night time lows of 23°C  (73°F) to afternoon highs of 29°C (84°F), still about 5°C lower than it can get at its peak. Anyway, I'll leave you with a lovely photo of Maronti Beach and Sant'Angelo in the background for now and I'll be back with another update soon. Ciao :-)