‘Times have changed’: The Italian princess renting out her palace in Rome

By Maureen O’Hare, CNN

(CNN) — In our roundup of travel stories this week: Istanbul’s time-traveling hotel, a slow-eater’s guide to Hong Kong, plus the aristocrats opening their homes to guests.

Palazzo for hire

Gone are the days when the duties of an Italian princess involved nothing more than a bit of regal hand-waving and playing piano for guests.

Legal recognition of the country’s nobility stopped in 1946 and for aristocrats such as Princess Giacinta Ruspoli, upkeep of the family’s ancestral homes doesn’t come cheap.

So Giacinta and her mother, Princess Maria Pia, a former Miss Sicily, rent out Ruspoli Bonaparte Residence, a 16th-century palace in Rome, and greet the paying guests.

A night in one of the property’s four suites — each measuring more than 1,000 square feet including several halls, ceiling-high stone fireplaces and marble decorations — starts at about $470, including butler service and breakfast.

Guests also get an “entrance ticket” to another noble residence, the family’s Castello Ruspoli, a former hunting estate in a village 30 miles north of Rome, which has been recently renovated to create a 10-suite boutique hotel.

“We consider ourselves as mere keepers” of the properties, says Giacinta. “Times have changed. My family wants to share all this beauty we have been gifted with everyone else.”

Doing the time warp

We all know about leap years, when February 29 is added to help keep our calendars synchronized with the Earth’s orbit around the sun.

Since the 1970s, leap seconds have also been doing the job of correcting the imbalance between astronomical time and the ultraprecise atomic clocks that now set the global standard. This week, however, international timekeepers voted to scrap them and introduce the leap hour, the first of which might not happen for thousands of years.

Our notion of standardized time is a modern construct, spurred by the advent of rail travel in the 19th century and the need for agreed-upon timetables.

The Orient Express was a pioneering international rail service that began in 1883, but its end destination, Turkey, didn’t adopt the Gregorian calendar until more than 40 years later.

The country’s first New Year’s party was held at the legendary Pera Palace Hotel. Turkey abolished the Rumi calendar, which was pinned to the year 1341, and instantly woke up in the Western Gregorian year of 1926. It was a literal 585-year chronological leap, executed overnight.

Party before breakfast

Why wait until nighttime for the fun to start?

In London, hundreds of people turned up in the financial district for a Wednesday morning dance-off before work, as appetite grows worldwide for daytime raves. It’s a wholesome wellness trend, where revelers are fueled by nothing more than morning air and good vibes.

In London, the morning ravers get the party started quickly before the work day, but in Hong Kong, it’s diners who are focused on speed. In this city, eating fast isn’t just practical – it’s a virtue, an art form and a way of life. However, CNN’s Maggie Wong was raised in Hong Kong by a father who taught her never to rush a meal: Here’s a slow-eater’s guide to navigating the city’s restaurants.

North Korean flight attendants

CNN’s Will Ripley has made 19 trips to North Korea and used its national airline, Air Koryo, many times. He spoke to a flight attendant to learn more about the job, which gives her a rare opportunity for a North Korean: the ability to travel.

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