Montecarlo and Monaco
Quick stop in Montecarlo and the luxe and dense world of Monaco
France & Italy
Eze-actly Right, France
A walk up to the Jardin Exotique d'Eze brought sweeping views over the Riviera.
Nice times in Nice
In Nice, we ate socca, walked along the Promenade and stayed at the incredible Hotel Perouse.
Villages Surrounding Saint-Tropez
Day trips from Saint-Tropez included Bargeme, Muy, and Grimaud.
Saint-Tropez, France
Having never been to southern France, when I imagined visiting Saint-Tropez, I thought of bright beaches and sparkling sunglasses and navy blue bathing suits. But after a 6½ hour flight direct from NYC into Nice and a quick drive, we arrived in a town that I can only describe as quaint, quiet and pristine. The pastel buildings were painted pale colors, as perfect as a fresh box of chalk. We learned from a waiter, after pronouncing it phonetically for months, that the real pronunciation is …
Florence
Since there last, I have remembered Florence as the city that smells like leather and warm waffle cones toasting on the open streets. This time several weeks ago, the air was a bit friskier and the shops not quite so exposed, and yet, the mystery behind the cobbles and closed wooden doors on every alley drew me in yet again. Third time, and still such a charm. We arrived via train from Nice fairly late our first evening, and queued up for one of what seemed like only three taxis in town. Our dri…
Cinque Terre by boat
Back to our morning on the boat, the highlight of our travels through Cinque Terre! When my mother-in-law mentioned we'd like to take a boat, Stephano, our hotel owner, told us we might not find one this late in the year but to head to the harbor to see. We took the train from Monterosso (home base and the northernmost town) to the southernmost of the five, Riomaggiore. The train announcements sounded like rio-ma-CHEE-or-ay; love how they drag out the vowels. We walked down to the harbor, just i…
Cinque Terre, Italy
Italy will always glow like a bright orange ember in my heart for its romance, because it was during my first trip to Italy with a college friend that I was just starting to date Walker. We spent every spare, and not spare, minute searching for (cringe) internet cafes, so that I could type wobbly letters to him, across an ocean, telling of our adventures through glass factories and marmalade pastries. Our stops included Venice, Florence, and the Cinque Terre, a huddle of five ancient villages re…