A long time ago, I had a quick day in Milan with my fun Italy bus tour for pensioners and then an overnight many years later during August when the city pretty much goes on vacation and shuts down. If I’m honest, I didn’t quite discover the charms of the […]
The note in the Platine hotel elevator alerted guests that the taxi drivers would be on strike the next day in Paris. The taxi strike would definitely be chaotic, in my opinion, and I wasn’t quite sure how it would solve the dispute at hand which was the arrival […]
You want to go to Paris? Great, now where to stay? If you are like me, you often default to the US chain hotels such Marriott, Hilton and Starwood first and then have massive sticker shock when you find a room and do both conversions – Euro € to US $ […]
After nearly three weeks in Italy and too many pastas, pizzas and bread sticks, when I arrived in Florence, I was on a mission to find The Hard Rock Café Florence. I had left the U.S. a month before on a boat of mediocre food, practically overdosed on the fabulous […]
Marilyn Monroe was glamorous and her image lives on in Paris at the Platine Hotel, a four star boutique hotel find on Hotel Tonight under the “hip” category. I booked a week in advance ($215 a night was awesome deal saving over $100 a night) which is a nice feature […]
History can be a bit dry at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning in Paris sitting on a full tour bus of 45 people when the first attraction is more than a two-hour drive away and the tour is all day long (12.5 hrs). You may want to sleep until […]
I had to look twice as the train went over the Venice lagoon as we approached the city as I thought I saw a dragon boat and then a kayaker. In a city long associated with the gondola I thought it odd but then I learned it was the weekend […]
From the AirBnB site, it looked amazing! This large Airbnb Venice flat along the canals with a view of the gondolas in Venice outside. It seemed too good to be true. I looked at the calendar of availability and was immediately crestfallen as it was rented out for the whole […]
As a child, I would stay on the swings as long as I could. While my sister and friends had moved onto the monkey bars and other playground equipment, I stayed on the swings enjoying each attempt to go higher and fly. As a teen, my swings were upgraded at […]
I’ve escaped my life at home and here I sit watching the world float by – literally watching people from around the world on what is presumably their first gondola ride in Venice. Watching their faces as they point at the buildings, others taking photos and some playing with their phones bored […]