Week in Photos: St Tropez, Eze, Monaco, St Paul de Vence, San Remo
With family in town, we spent the week exploring Biot, Saint Tropez, Eze, Monaco and Saint Paul de Vence in France/Monaco and San Remo, over the boarder in Italy. Gallery des Arcades in Biot. This is a great restaurant that serves a mix of Provençal food with an Italian flare. If you can, grab a table […]
Flying From France to Los Angeles to Get a VISA and Back Again
Harper and I left Nice on Sunday morning and flew through Munich to arrive later that extra long day in Los Angeles. We passed through customs, grabbed our bags and hopped on a bus to get our rental car. We were in a hurry to find In n’ Out Burger and then the Hotel Shangri-La […]
Obtaining a French Long Stay Visa and a Visit to the French Consulate in LA
I will start off by stating: this is not a guide on how to get a French Visa, I wouldn’t dream of dragging you through everything we have been through in a blog post. Rather, this is a condensed version of our experience during the week we traveled to obtain our visa. If you are […]
23 Tips (and growing) for Visiting Tuscany
1. Make time to see attractions at sunset or at night. If you are taking photos, the best light is often in the last hour of the day. If you can, visit popular tourist attractions after 9pm to avoid crowds and get a different perspective. Sometimes seeing things at night can be a new experience […]
Five Days with Toscana
Shhh… Don’t tell my wife. I’m in love with another. She is natural beauty, with dizzying curves that are hard to miss. Her knowledge on the subjects of art and culture have made her very influential and she maintains incredible collections at the Uffizi and Pitti Palace. I’m not the first to love her, other […]
Five Days in Tuscany: Day 5- Siena
Our last full day in Tuscany and there is no doubt that we want to spend more time here. We’ve covered a lot of ground but there is still so much we could do. Today our focus is on Siena, but as discussed in an earlier post we are being pulled toward spending more time […]
Five Days in Tuscany: Day 4: Chianti
Another day, another enchanted morning at Villa Collina. This morning I drank my espresso sitting in front of the Il Campanile chapel as I watched the sun climb out of the valley below. Our day in Val d’Orcia was amazing, but tiring, so we decided to take it easy at Villa Collina before venturing out […]
Five Days in Tuscany: Day 3- Val d’Orcia- Montalcino, San Quirico d’Orcia, and Pienza
Our third day in Tuscany began with an amazing sunrise from the top level master bedroom of our villa. Opening the windows wide we could lean out and hear the quiet, and feel the crisp morning air. While looking out the open windows, I felt connected to another time and place. One thousand years ago […]
Five Days in Tuscany: Day 2- Pisa to San Galgano
Twelve hours after arriving in Pisa, we were up and enjoying our second day in Tuscany, fresh-brewed Italian cappuccino’s in hand. Fear not fellow American’s who rely on the consistency factor of Starbucks, if you order a cappuccino in Italy, you get a cappuccino. In France, not so much. After enjoying an Italian style buffet […]
Five Days in Tuscany: Day 1- 178 Tunnels to Pisa
After weeks of planning and anticipation, we hit the road to Tuscany on our first overnight road trip since moving to France. We were on the road shortly after 4pm, with our destination set for Pisa- only 390km away. Our goal was to arrive in Pisa before sunset so that we could see the city […]
How to Take Fluffer the Cat to France
As we near closer to our move date (end of January) our list of things to do is getting a bit longer. The relocation company has provided us with a lot of assistance, but the one area that we’ve been somewhat on our own is: traveling and moving our cat, Fluffer. Honestly it would be […]