San Remo and the Italian Grammys

February 19th

It's not everyday you find yourself surrounded by Italian music stars, but thats what happened in San Remo. I walked right into the Italian Grammys.

The Italian Riviera is dotted with little towns and villages.  It stretches from where Italy and France meet on the west all the way over to La Spezia and the 5 towns of Cinque Terra to the east.

The Italian Riviera 

After my nightmare in Genoa last week, I decided to change my itinerary and stop in San Remo for the night. It ended up being a fantastic decision.

The entire drive along the coastline was gorgeous. And San Remo itself was off the charts.  I started snapping photos on the exit ramp. It was so gorgeous, I almost drove off the cliff. 

It was a perfect day, with blue skies and a few puffy white clouds.

Obviously, the photos are crappy because I'm driving (slowly are carefully) down switchback curves and shooting these photos out the passenger side window.

I drove into town looking for a hotel and dead-stopped when I saw the gorgeous Royal Hotel San Remo.

Oh, you guys!  It's like a posh luxury hotel from the 1920s.  Nothing has changed. It's glitz and glamour is still there.  It's set high above the road on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. I feel in love from the road and decided to pul in That's where things got a bit strange.

As I walked into the hotel, I noticed a group of paparazzi huddled around the entrance door.  Several of them quickly turned my way, cameras in hand, but then turned back, uninterested. Hmmm...

As soon as I walked in, I could tell something very interesting was going on in the hotel. Groups of people were milling around, whispering to each other and pointing at people checking in.  As I stood in line, I saw 2 or 3 different people approach this older man to my left.

Each person nervously spoke to him in hushed Italian, asked for a photo and beamed proudly when he obliged. For all I knew, this was the Italian Robert DiNero or something.  Very strange to see people fawning over someone you don't know...

Suddenly, a flurry of activity happened behind me.  A group of security guards surrounding a 40-ish slender, brunette woman quickly lead her through the lobby and out the door I'd just come in.  As the door swung open, I saw all the paparazzi flash bulbs go off in a huge, chaotic grouping.  They shouted in Italian while security got her in the back of a car and she sped off.

A man in a purple shirt appeared (below), was mobbed by people asking for photos and finally, security asked people to move across the lobby.  Okay...what is happening?

I finally got up to the desk and asked for a room. They explained they had just 1 room remaining...a large ocean front room.  I took it.  As they checked me in, I asked what was going on.

The receptionist explained the San Remo Song Festival was going on (the Italian equivalent of the Grammys) and the hotel was full with Italian celebrities, singers and musicians. Ahhh! I stumbled into a fabulous event! The Italian Grammys!

I have to say, being a celebrity must be very strange.  I'd hate it. The paparazzi were respectful but very intense.  The fans were completely inappropriate and seemed to lose all common sense. The older man was trying to check into his room, for crying out loud, and 3 or 4 people interrupted him to get a photo.  Let the poor guy sign his receipt! Get his key, drop his bag, take a load off.  Jeez. And to be surrounded by security and ushered around the way the woman was? She must feel like a prisoner.
Later, in the lobby, an older woman told me she's a pop singer and compared her to Lada Gaga or Miley Cyrus.

Anyway, I got up to my room and wow!  It was a huge room, a King size bed (unheard of in Europe!), and tall 25 foot ceilings.

But the view!  Well....see for yourself in this crappy video.  (I'm still trying to figure out video and my blog, folks.  Sorry!)

Here's a still photo, so you don't get motion sickness:

I actually squealed when I went into the bathroom. FULL SIZE AMENITIES? I've died and gone to hotel heaven!

Then, I realized they give you a box full of various lotions and creams. OMG, you guys.

My balcony overlooked not only the gorgeous Mediterranean, but also the balcony of one of the musicians who had a party that night. The artists stayed inside, but I manage to snap this photo.  (If anyone is up on their Italian musicians and artist and can identify any of these folks, let me know in the comments!)

The hotel had a spa with hot tub, Turkish baths, steam room and sauna, so I decided to go exploring San Remo and buy a bathing suit. San Remo is awesome.  There is a casino, which looked gorgeous. I fully intended to go back and do some gambling, but I never got around to it.

As I walked through the streets of San Remo in the shopping district, the sun was setting. Suddenly, I realized that all above me were twinkle lights!  Oh, so charming.

I found a suit and spent the evening relaxing in the awesome spa.

And despite all the fabulous artist parties going on around me and fans milling around the lobby, I decided to keep it low key.  I ate an amazing sandwich from room service, watched a gorgeous sunset and listened to the waves crashing.

The next morning, that gorgeous view was the first thing I saw. I snapped a photo before getting up so I could remember it!

I just had to take a photo at breakfast. These are blown glass flowers (probably Murano glass, made in Italy) that line the room up at the ceiling.  Considering the price of Murano glass, this art installation was very impressive!

My crappy photos don't do it justice. It really reminded me of those Dale Chiluly exhibits around the country of blown glass flowers.

I tried to get tickets to the Song Festival, but they were sold out.  I also asked around to see if there were any cool events going on that I could crash, but thats all kept pretty hush hush.

San Remo was gorgeous and I'd happily visit there again. As I was driving out the gate of the hotel, another group of paparazzi were waiting, with cameras at their eyes, ready for me.  They saw my sporty little Alfa Romeo, and seemed to be trying to figure out who i was. I put on my sunglasses, smiled big and waved to the cameras as I sped off.  

I'm (A Musing) Jules!  My autographs below....

Gratitude, the Italian Riviera and Yvette

I've driven thousands of miles across Europe in my travels.  This week, I drove along the Italian Riviera and it was one of my all-time favorite drives.

In a lot of places I've driven in the last 2 months, the radio is full of static and the near-constant tunnels make the radio useless. Without radio to distract me, I spend a lot of time thinking. It's nice to be completely free for the first time in my adult life. I don't have a job to worry about... no house, bills, or any traditional life stressors to weigh on my mind. It's been wonderful to be away from TV, the news, my iPhone, iPad and laptop.  I've been alone with my thoughts for a big portion of this trip and that had been wonderful.

On Monday afternoon, I dropped my parents at the Nice airport and drove up the Italian Riviera towards San Remo.  It was a gorgeous, sunny day...the water a beautiful shade of blue, the sky dotted with perfect, puffy white clouds.  I was looking around at all the beauty of the Italian Riviera, the sweeping vistas, the mountains, the villages and I was overcome by the beauty. I found myself wanting everyone in the world to see this amazing place.

I started thinking about all the people who will never see this place. And tears were suddenly streaming down my cheeks. I thought of factory workers, teachers who spend their money on school supplies, single mothers and hardworking parents with tight budgets for whom travel (let alone international travel) is cost prohibitive. I started thinking about all the people around the world who would never have the money to travel the way I have, or would never be able to take the time off work to do so. And then I thought of all the people in history who had lived their entire lives and died without ever seeing the beauty that I was seeing.

My grandma and grandpa for example, died without ever seeing that view. As I drove, that made me so inexplicably sad.  My grandpa worked his entire life and never visited Europe, let alone Italy or the Riviera!  One of my moms closest friends is Italian and she's never seen that view.  I want nothing more than to bring her here... to show her this place.  The stretch of land between Nice, France and San Remo Italy is perhaps the most gorgeous place on the face of this earth.

As I drove along, I felt the most overwhelming sense of sadness and gratitude. Perhaps for the first time on this 13 week trip, I truly, fully realized the gravity of what I’m doing. Very few people in the world are ever able to do something like this.  I was suddenly keenly aware of how lucky I am. And I felt tiny, small and insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe.  I felt unworthy somehow. I just couldn't believe that I get to do this...to see this place...to take this trip.  Me!  I was full of joy.

As I drove, I thought about that all of us have lives that include sorrow and joy. My sister, for example, would love to travel as I've been able to.  But, along with that sorrow, she has the incredible joy of her marriage and their large family of 6 children!  And while I have the wonderful opportunity to travel, the freedom I enjoy is because I am single and don't have a family of my own. That carries with it some inherent sorrow. Neither life is right or wrong, better or worse. They're just different.  I know my sister wants me to find a great love of my own, get married and have children. And I want her to have the ability to see the world as I've been able to.

She and I work very hard to simply understand that we have different joys and sorrows in our lives. (Sometimes we're successful, sometimes not so much!) But, we try to share the joys and sorrows with each other, understanding that we may never truly identify with the peaks and valleys in each others lives.  But trying is all that matters.

I spent that afternoon driving and thinking, finding clarity in dark corners of my mind I normally avoid by grabbing my iPhone or singing along to Tom Petty on the radio.

That's what the italian Riviera was for me. A place so beautiful, a moment so perfect that I was completely overcome by it.  My heart was so full of love and gratitude, I just wanted to share it with everyone.

You'll notice this post has no photos. That's intentional.  No image would ever capture what I saw that day driving up the coast.  But...try to imagine it.  Soft blue sky, puffy clouds, deep blue water, gorgeous towns spilling down the craggy cliffs towards the Mediterranean.  Warm air blowing in the car windows and an empty road stretching out before you.

Close your eyes and imagine a place that puts you back in touch with your soul.

Antibes and Cannes

This post is part of 4 posts on Nice, Monaco, Carnavale and Antibes and Cannes. 

• All about Nice, France. Check it out...! 
• If you want to read about Carnavale and see my insane pictures... Check it out...! 
• My tiny country profile of Monaco is here: Check it out...!
• Antibes and Cannes is where I fell in love with yachts. Read all about it, below.

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On Monday, we drove down the coast to Antibes and Cannes before I dropped my parents off at the airport in Nice for their return flight to Vicenza.

In Antibes, we parked the car and decided to walk around.  

As we strolled along the streets, we came across a creperie and decided to duck inside for a quick bite.  I got a ham and cheese crepe and it was enormous and delicious! Actually, it was something other than a crepe... but I can't remember the name.  The guy explained crepes are usually filled with sweet filling.

And we ran into the cutest puppy in the world... a Cavalier King Charles spaniel.

And then we found the marina.  I've never seen so many yachts in one place. They ranged in size from large to truly enormous.

I really liked the ones that were real wood...

But, I'd take this one, too!

I think part of the fun of owning a boat would be naming her. I liked this one, named Zoe.

This one was from New York. How the heck did they get it from New York over? This little boat can't go that far, right? Did they ship it?  Is shipping a ship a thing?

And even a few yachts for sale. I fell in love with this one.  If anyone wants to buy it for me, just let me know!

After Antibes, we drove further down the coast to Cannes, home of the famous Cannes Film Festival. Sadly, we were running out of time before my parents had to be at the airport, so we only had time for a quick stop at a public beach.  I would have liked to explore the town, see the famous locations and sights. I guess I'll just have to go back!

From what I saw, Cannes is a beautiful town. Here's a few photos from the beach:

My dad...

And me...!

The French Riviera was absolutely awesome...even in February!