Gondolas, palaces and 'O Sole Mio"—ahhh, the usual romantic image of Venice. Granted, the city known as "La Serenissima," is quite lovely and enchanting, but also full of money potholes and tourist stereotypes.

Because we like you, and because we've had our fair share of Venice visits and wish all the same enjoyment for yours, we're helping you out with our list of What Not To Do In Venice: The Top 5 Tourist Mistakes.

Check them out, after the jump.

Oh my gosh, would you believe that another building by Zaha Hadid got built? The Baghdad-born architect is famous for her futuristic designs, but most only stay looking good on paper. She has a few buildings scattered around the world, but the newest one in Rome takes the cake in terms of scale and space.

Dubbed the MAXXI Museum, or National Museum of the XXI Century Arts, it is a triumph for Zaha. Having opened only several days ago and described by the NYT as "less a unified lone structure than a convergence of long, shiny, serpentine modules — a bit like a space-age highway interchange," the Maxxi is already going down in architecture history. And since we've got a thing for good design, modern art and any new museum exhibitions, the Maxxi is fresh on our radar as well.

Frustrated residents carried an empty coffin to the mayor’s office this weekend, in a mock funeral procession designed to highlight the city’s dwindling full-time population. Venetian officials responded by calling the funeral stunt “premature”—not the most forceful rebuttal I’ve ever heard, and none too comforting for those of us who’d like to see the city live for a long time yet.

Need several excuses to visit Milan? A Renaissance-era library has begun exhibiting Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, which due to preservation requirements will go on display 45 pages at a time and rotate every three months. So if you can't get to the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana by December 2 to check out da Vinci's military drawings, you have until 2015 to get there and see some of the polymath's magnificent work.

Founded by a cardinal who thought it would aid the Counter-Reformation, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana hosted the second public library in Europe and, unlike most book collections of the day, displayed its treasures in glass cases instead of chaining them to desks against thievery. These days, you still can't borrow anything from the Bibliotheca, but it offers literature classes and, for now, a chance to check out some da Vinci you won't find in other museums.

Some locales can’t seem to shake their less-than-sparkling reputations despite efforts to lock away the skeletons of yesterday. We’ve decided to highlight five of these Bad Rap Cities that are making moves to shed their grimy and gritty images in hopes of becoming more tourist-friendly. Maybe, just maybe, after reading this series you'll be willing to take a chance on them. Enjoy.

Bad Rap City: Naples

Why Go?
The revitalization projects have seen a vast improvement in the overall vibe, with middle-class neighborhoods like the Vomero cropping up all over the city, but locals insist the media ignores it, preferring instead to continue casting Napoli in a bad light. But there are lots of efforts to clean up Naples' act, literally, from the mayor’s tax incentive to pretty up buildings' grim exteriors to the current construction boom designed to expand and improve the underground metro system.

A multimillion-euro project is also underway to revamp the Port of Naples into a sleek cruise ship terminal and shop-filled walkway designed greet and impress the one-million passengers passing through each year. So,if it’s been a while since you visited Naples, chances are you wouldn’t recognize it now.

Over at WhyGo Italy, Jessica Spiegel offers some blunt myth-busting and advice about Venice. That infamously mediocre, overpriced food, for instance? It’s real but avoidable.

REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini

Sailboats at the annual Barcolana regatta in the Gulf of Trieste near northern Italy. The race is one of the largest in the world with more than 2,000 participants.

If you know anything about Venice, you know that it is a city built on water, so it's quite fitting that the perfect location for plane spotting is onboard a boat. But not just any boat, we're talking about the water taxis between Venice's Marco Polo Airport and Venice proper. The airport sits on marsh land right on the coast, while the tourist-filled portion is out in the middle of the lagoon.

Going between the airport and the city of Venice therefore means taking either a private boat or the Alilaguna Waterbus right underneath the paths of arriving and departing flights. While you rock on the waves of other speeding water taxis passing by, you can look up at airplanes from carriers like Alitalia and other major carriers. Smaller LCC airlines like Jaunted personal favorite Germanwings sadly won't be found here, but at Treviso Airport.

Looks like it. Archaeologists in Rome claim to have unearthed a circular rotating dining room used by Emperor Nero, proving, as Felicity Cloake writes in the Guardian, that “when it comes to naff eateries, anything we can do, the toga wearers did first.”

The AP has a proper news report on the discovery:

This very well may be Rachel Ray's idea of hotel heaven.

We’ve been hooked on MANNI White Truffle Extra Virgin Olive Oil since we sat in on a demo at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen a few years ago. Then, Chef Ryan Hardy of Montagna at The Little Nell gave us two bottles to take home – one Per Mia Figlia (for my child) and one Per Me (for me) and it’s like liquid gold crack for foodies.

Now, the EVOO expert Armando Manni has extended his presence in the luxury lifestyle market with the opening of Casa MANNI Roma, an exclusive penthouse for two in a 17th-century palazzo