A woman who had shopped in a local market in a town near Naples got quite a surprise when she opened the sack of potatoes that she’d purchased. She took out the potatoes to wash and peel them and discovered that one of the potatoes was really a hand grenade that had apparently been left over from World War II.

Olga Mauriello had put the potatoes in a pot of water and had begun to peel them when she found the explosive which was heavily covered in dirt. Alarmed, she called her neighbors who in turn called the police.

The police ended up detonating the grenade the next day in a nearby park. The grenade was believed to have traveled with the potatoes from France.

A grand dinner was held for high-rolling food lovers from around the world on the 65th floor of a luxury hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. It was a truly unique dining experience for many. The event was called “Epicurean Masters of the World”.

At 25 thousand dollars a pop, many had trouble finishing the ten course gourmet dinner that was prepared by six three star Michelin Chefs, four from France and one each from Italy and Germany.

The extravagant dinner featured Perigord truffles, Beluga caviar, Kobe beef, Brittany lobster and each was paired with a rare and robust vintage wine. The event was designed to promote Thai tourism. Most of the profits will got to two charities.

Imagine paying 25,000 for a meal that’s so large and so rich that you can’t even finish it?

One of these days we plan to take a vacation in Europe. I’ve been to Ireland in the past, but other than that neither of us have been anywhere else in Europe.

Like so many others who plan vacations to Europe no trip would be complete without visiting England, France and Italy. I’m sure that if we were able to take a holiday of a month or more we’d go to a few other Countries as well.

We still don’t know when we might be able to take this dream vacation but it can’t hurt to begin planning where we might stay, what cities we might visit and what historic sites we’d want to see.

Take Rome for example. This city is so old and has so some much history. We could probably spend a month there alone and still not see everything that we’d like to see. There are several museums that we’d visit. I also think it would be wonderful to see the Pantheon, the Catacombs, St. Peters and Vatican City, the Colosseum, and the Forum as well as so many other historic sites.

There’s even a wide assortment of Hotels to stay in. We could stay in a 5 star suite at Hotel Fori Imperiali Cavalieri in the heart of the historic center, or perhaps for the sake of keeping our expenses down stay in the 3 star Hotel Siena Rome which is also in the heart of Rome and appears to be quite a nice hotel with all the amenities that we’d need.

As many of you already realize, where you stay when you are on a trip far from home, whether it be business travel or vacation can make or break your trip. Which means that choosing the right hotels along the way is as important as it is to choose the correct travel and tour itinerary. So I plan on doing some research on the hotels that we’d like to stay in, in Rome and any other cities on our dream vacation.

I came across Easytobook.com and I like that they show each hotels rating as well as a brief description on each of the city pages. Once you choose a hotel that you think you might want to stay in your can learn more about it by clicking on the hotels link where you will find more information about the hotel, photos, a map of it’s location within the city and many other forms of information related to the hotels location within the city, and information on how to book or cancel your reservations.

It’s a great site to visit in order to learn more about tourist destinations within the city of your choice - Rome in our case - and to book your hotel stays. I’ve bookmarked this site so that I can do more research as we plan our future Roman vacation.

Objects made of metal are being stolen by people looking to cash in on the increase in raw metal prices. Church roofs, statues, drain covers and even tweezers have been stolen in the city of Paris.

Thefts of copper, aluminum, zinc and nickel were up 144 percent in France last year.

“We are witnessing a real pillage of companies’ assets,” Colonel Philippe Schneider, who heads a police division that specializes in countering such crime, told reporters.

“Everything can be stolen, everything can be sold — cables, drain covers, sculptures,” Schneider said. “We even had 300 kilograms of tweezers stolen.”

Other targets included plane doors, phone booth floors, car wheel rims, cemetery gates and a church roof made of zinc.

Copper, widely used in construction and industry, became a big target for thieves last year as prices of the metal doubled to $8,800 a tonne at one point due to booming Asia demand.

Schneider said stealing cable from a building site or hijacking trucks loaded with scrap metal could pay more than robbing a cash machine or a bank and was far less risky.

“Stealing 10 tonnes of copper is simple,” he said.

“Alongside the traditional petty thefts are methods typical of organized crime, such as … armed robberies, often by international networks.”

However, the number of incidents reported had dropped around 40 percent since October, partly due to a fall in prices and partly because of police efforts to break up organized gangs, he said.

World copper prices have tumbled over the past few months but remain around 20 percent higher than at the same time last year.

Schneider said thieves often sold metal to recycling companies. However, of the 2,500 to 3,000 recycling firms in France, a maximum of 100 were involved in metals trafficking.