Interesting.

I guess when Voltaire made his quip though, there was probably some truth to it. Obviously the HRE had degenerated. I suppose it was more like a HRE in its early days (say around 1100 or something).

As predicted, I've no idea what the answers to your clue are, so I'll let yk research it. I'm willing to take a wild guess the designer is Giorgio Armani (at least the numbers fit).

Pantelleria
Gorgio Armani
Naomi Campbell?

Wow. Maybe I'm even right.

There's Pantelleria (11 letters).

Can't confirm because you don't give positions of letters.

Ok, yk beat me.

Oh, maybe it's Julia Roberts
(somehow Naomi Campbell comes to mind right away, but the letter # doesn't fit)

Yeah, I was going to point that out!

Sorry, I should have positioned letters. You both got the designer; however, yk got all three:

Pantelleria Islands
Giorgio Armani
Julia Roberts

Have either of you been there? I would like to go there someday....

No, it sounds wonderful.

I was reading something that says that Armani is worth 2.2 billion and is #247 on Forbes's list.

It's obviously a little out of my league, though I do have an Armani suit I treasure (it's from the cheaper Emporio line though).

Maybe we should ask m_kingdom to go there.

No, I didn't mean his villa, per se....just the islands! I heard that the Pantellerias get incredibly hot (even hotter than Italy) when the dry scirocco winds blow off from Africa. Not sure if it is possible to reach them by ferry or does one have to fly there from Sicily?

Nah, don't have enough $ to go there (plus I'm not a Armani's friend). Read about it in Travel+Leisure though. Here's the link to the article:
http://www.travelandleisure.com/invo...D5547BBFA11013

I just assumed that the island must be quite exclusive as well. Why would Armani have a villa there otherwise?

Gosh, I really need to do some work here.... Or look for a new job. I seem to be perpetually changing jobs though.

It's very interesting. I read the first page. I'll have to read the rest of this when I'm wealthier.

Was surprised that Zabar flies there from Provence?! For lunch!

The rich and the famous.

Interesting article, so it's a 7 hour ferry ride over....I first heard about the Pantellerias 3 years ago from the Naples family I know. They have gone there for a summer holiday and said it was wonderful, not many tourists, isolated, yet beautiful. Sigh, I will have to put that on my list of places to go next time!

This island (or group of islands), though not located in Europe, belong(s) to an European country.

It was discovered in the mid 18th century during a vogage, and named after the ship navigator. Captain Cook arrived on the island later and gave it a more "fitting" name. It is rather isolated and has no permanent residents except 50-100 scientists who are there for research. It's main attraction is it's harsh weather - >300 days a year of rain, sleet or snow.

9 letters (to make it easier, the 1st letter is "K", even though "K" didn't appear in the last clue)

Kerguelen?

How did you come up with this clue?

Yes. I guess it made it easy with the "K"? How did you come up with the answer???

Here's a link to more about Kerguelen:
http://www.discoverfrance.net/Colonies/Kerguelen.shtml
Captain Cook called it "Desolation Islands".


I came across it in an article in the in-flight magazine on a BA flight several years ago. It was written by a BA pilot (who I believe was French?), who was fascinated by the island, and ended up going on a journey to get to Kerguelen. In all "destination articles" in the BA magazine, at the very end, there's a box that details what BA flights fly to that destination. For Kerguelen, the box says, "British Airways flies nowhere near Kerguelen Island." I had a good laugh.

I forget what I used to get the answer. I tried a couple of combinations of words and one of them gave this as the first link in Google.

It's very interesting.

BTW, that's one of the few places that I have no interest to visit (unless I run out of places to go).

Ha.

Another music clue. I want to use the "k" somehow.

This piece of music (3 words, 4, 6, 10, 1st position of 2nd word = "k&quot is again so famous that even if you're not a classical music fan, chances are that you've heard it numerous times. The composer is also (very) famous.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik