We docked overnight in Monaco, so we decided to rent a car and explore the french riviera. We drove about an hour in our lovely volkswagon to the tiny village of St-Paul-de-Vence. It was charming…way up at the top of the mountains…lots of little art galleries and little shops….men playing bocci ball (we think)! From there, we drove back through Nice and stopped at the beach to walk around a bit. Decided not to lay out considering there is no sand, just uncomfortable looking rocks!! But the tons of people there didn’t seem to mind. Then we headed back towards Monaco and drove up to another little walled in city called Eze. You’ll have to see pictures to appreciate it, but it was also very beautiful. Later that night, we got all dolled up to go to the casino in Monte Carlo. Considering the fact that it costs about 25$ a person just to enter and then when you change your dollars to euro you lose about 30%…..we had a lot of work to do right off the bat! It got worse from there and we soon left the casino with empty pockets…but it was quite a scene to see. (No, they don’t have poker ( ) The casino itself is unreal looking. The amount of gold lining the walls was ridiculous. In front of the casino the exotic cars lined up was quite amazing. We saw a bunch of exotic cars that we had never seen before. Driving around Monaco was fascinating. The architecture here is simply beautiful. Everything is very elaborate. The marina had some of the largest yachts I had ever seen in person. The robb report was here doing a show on the boats. You can’t imagine the sizes of them. We saw Wayne Huizenga’s yacht with helicopter on top in addition to his private plane when we drove by the airport. Robbie could have spent 2 days just looking at all the private jets lined up in Nice. They were literally lined up for about a mile long stretch. Unreal! This place is definitely for the rich and famous
(not us). Truly amazing!

Off to Taormina

Today we woke up with one mission on our mind….to find Lauren a new flat iron. Unfortunately Lauren’s broke on her yesterday, which for you ladies out there is a major problem. Luckily we were able to find one early in the day and really got to enjoy Portofino. This town is amazing, with a beautiful harbor lined with shops and restaurants. After we strolled around Portofino, we took a 10 minute bus ride to Santa Margherita (yes, the very city in which the wine is from)! We spent the afternoon shopping and walking around there. We stopped for some local pastries that were delicious. We had to head back to Portofino for our lunch reservation at Splendido (the hotel Rod Stewart got married at last week). The photo for this post was taken from the terrace where we had lunch. It had million dollar views that were obviously included in the price for lunch. So worth it though…the picture does not even do it justice. We are en route to Monte Carlo, where we have rented a car for the day to go explore the Cote D’Azur (French Riviera). I’m sure we’ll have plenty to write about that! Au Revior!

Caviar
Oysters
Mushroom Soup
Pasta
Maine Lobster

On to room service…. post it tomorrow

Salmon tartar w/ Beluga Caviar
Jalepeno yellowtail in a ponzu sauce
Tuna Tataki
Lobster in a black bean sauce
Rock Shrimp
Assorted Sushi rolls
Warm chocolate cake soufflé with vanilla ice cream

Today’s meal plan went like this:

Breakfast:
Banana Pancakes
Scrambled Eggs
Omelette
Bagel
Fruit Bowl
Coffee

Lunch:
Lasagna
Salad
Beef
Bread
Funky Dessert – seemed like donuts with chocolate chip whip cream in the middle

Snack:

Gelato #1 in Florence (strawberry/banana, Coffee & Vanilla)

Dinner:

King Crab meat stack
Sun-dried tomato cheesecake appetizer
Spinach salad
Pasta
Salmon
side of sweet potato gnocchi
Cream puff with chocolate

Late night room service

Bagel with cream cheese
Shrimp cocktail
chocolate mint (left on pillow)