Traveling Girl With a Glass

I left Nice yesterday in the pouring rain on a delayed flight, arriving in Calvi, Corsica (on the northernmost tip, not on the map below) just in time for a glass of wine and dinner.  The flight is a quick 30 minutes and my hotel turned out to be about five minutes from the airport, so it felt like I was whisked straight from boarding the plane in Nice to walking into my room.

I’m staying at a lovely place called La Signoria, just a few km outside of Calvi.  The staff here is amazing, the kind of people that make you truly regret not paying attention in whatever foreign language class you took in middle school – they all speak four languages.  French, Italian, English, and Corsu (Corsican).  Can you imagine?  I only know one person (hi, Henk) who speaks more than two languages, and in fact I think he speaks eight or ten, as that’s his profession.  These folks, though, are waiters, concierges, and desk clerks, and they all speak four.  They seem to think it’s funny that I’m amazed by this, but I AM.  I can’t even keep “si” and “oui” straight now that I’ve crossed from Italy to France.

Corsica, as you either already (unlike your author before she researched this trip) knew or by now have surmised, is part of France.  It is an island off the west coast of Italy.  Napoleon was actually born here – in the southern town of Ajaccio, where I’ll be heading this morning.  And I discovered yesterday that the Corsicans also claim Christopher Columbus (recall I was told in Genoa that he was Genoese).  With a little digging, by which I mean quizzing my waiter while I sipped a glass of lovely Corsican rosé, the truth appears to be:  Columbus was indeed born in Calvi, but at the time of his birth Corsica was part of the Genoese empire, a technicality that allows both to claim him.

The Corsican people remind me a bit of the Basques – fiercely independent, and distinctly different in dialect and in personality than the rest of their mother country.  In fact, I found quickly that Corsicans do not like to be called French.  They are Corsican, thank you very much.  So now you have two travel rules from me:  don’t drive in Genoa, and don’t call a Corsican French.  

The island is far more mountainous than I thought it would be, and the mountains being so close, along with the overcast weather and the fact that I have read way too many Daniel Silva spy novels featuring a Corsican assassin, lend the place a slightly mysterious feeling.  Here’s the view from my little balcony:

Something called “macchia” is pervasive here.  It is a dense, herbal underbrush that covers the landscape and gives the air a savory smell.  Think rosemary mixed with pine and bay leaf and you’re close.  You can see it in the foreground of this photo:

I honestly didn’t do much yesterday.  During a midday break in the weather, I went for a run down to the beach, then mostly just lounged around and read.  I decided to embrace the solitude, as I’m getting ready to have company for the next ten days.  It was lovely.  For those of you who are readers, I’m working my way through three different books right now, all of which I would recommend:  Becoming Wise by Krista Tippett, Headstrong by Dave Asprey, and Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.

I’ll be taking a long taxi ride, about 2 1/2 hours, down to Ajaccio later this morning, where I’ll meet up with my hiking group for the rest of the trip.  Our route is below, and we’ll spend two nights in each of the red-dot towns.  




First hike is this afternoon.  Fingers crossed this rains stops….
Cheers!

Traveling Girl

So yesterday was a bit of a rough day here… it ended up well, proof that travel can be amazing even when it’s so frustrating you want to scream.  Or, you know, cry.  Which I may have done… at the front desk of my hotel.  But I’ll get to that in a minute.

I drove from Turin to Genoa in the morning, which was GORGEOUS.  You go through about forty tunnels, some short, some long, and as I approached Genoa I had that fun experience of entering a tunnel in one weather zone and exiting in another.  It had been cloudy and cool in Turin and for most of the drive, a dreary drizzle coming and going, but suddenly a brilliant blue sky appeared as I emerged from the tunnel, the sun almost shockingly bright.  And the sea!  I love the sea.  I do love living in Colorado – the mountains are home now – but there’s something about the ocean, isn’t there.

A quick backdrop on Genoa for you before I bitch about it and then tell you how amazing it is.

Two little pieces of cocktail party trivia on Genoa – Christopher Columbus was from here, and the Genoese invented pesto.  For eight centuries, Genoa was one of the great maritime republics (along with Venice, Pisa, and Amalfi) of what is now Italy.  A victory over Venice in 1298 led to a period of growth, but bickering between the Grimaldis, Dorias, Spinolas, and other dynasties was apparently a pretty huge problem. The Grimaldis decamped and headed west, establishing the principality of Monaco.  Hence the similarity of Monaco’s language, Monegasque, to the Genoese dialect.  Ligurian, turns out, is a Gallo-Italic language all it’s own, and Genoese is a dialect thereof.  So it hasn’t even been relevant that my Italian is terrible. (full disclosure: I lifted the history lesson straight from Lonely Planet and The NY Times.  I am not a history buff, so consider this my source notation)

The city of Genoa is built into the hills and the steep curve of the northwestern Italian coastline, and walking around it you feel a little unsettled, as though the whole collection of ancient structures might all tumble into the sea if you blink.  Or maybe you just feel unsettled because you are lost.  Which you probably are.

Getting into this city is beyond challenging.  I typically avoid giving hard-and-fast always do this or don’t ever do that travel advice, but I’m making an exception here because I love you all.  Don’t ever drive in Genoa. I think I’d rather drive in Mumbai than here. The city is quite literally a maze. The dense hills are crisscrossed by footpaths and staircases, threading through the streets, and they can be short cut by a bizarre collection of funiculars and elevators.  It is infinitely faster to walk here than to drive.  I kept trying to take photos later to capture the craziness of it all, with little success.  But for some semblance of reference, here’s a typical side street staircase:

As you might imagine, scooters are very popular, as they can navigate where cars can’t.  So here’s the scene if you are, say, a hapless American in a rental car:  you pull up at a light in a roundabout, having run the last one to a symphony of honks and impolite hand gestures (but really, a light in a roundabout?  Why would I have been looking for that.  You’re supposed to have one or the other, not both).  Within seconds, you are surrounded by scooters, like a swarm of bees.  They’re on all sides, no regard for lanes, all inching forward into every available space.  Then the light turns and the swarm takes off and it’s almost as if you’re just carried along…making it very hard to not go where they’re going.  So you miss your roundabout exit.  And you have to do it all again three more times to get back to it.

I actually saw my hotel but missed the entrance and it took me 45 minutes to get back to it. Siri is useless here.

Upon finally arriving, I hit the curb, parked illegally, and walked into the hotel and asked the lady at the front desk as calmly as possible if someone could please help me get the car to the rental place? I was due to drop it off shortly.  She said no, they did not have the staff to help me with that, I should simply drive there, it wasn’t far.

I can’t, I said.  I can’t drive here anymore.  I had held it together admirably until then, but I kid you not I just started to cry.  There are different kinds of tears – these were the hot tears of frustration that just won’t be held back when you’ve reached your limit.  The kind where it’s all you can do not to dissolve into a puddle and sob.  So embarrassing, but I was just so freaking frustrated.  I must have been pretty convincing because she called Hertz for me and convinced them to come pick the car up. Thank God.

It’s seriously crazy to me that this is a functioning city. How is everyone not lost all the time? And it’s huge. Not a big tourist destination and now we know why. It’s beautiful and fascinating but holy smokes it’s a lot of work.  I decided to get myself a good lunch, a glass of wine, and just walk around. I had a good old fashioned paper map from the gal at the hotel, so Siri was off the hook.

In the span of an afternoon, I walked 8 miles and climbed who knows how many flights of stairs.  I was intrigued by the maze of pathways and it became fun to just get lost and then eventually circle back to some piazza I could identify on the map.  By early evening, though, my spirits were sagging and I was tired.  I had made my way to the port, which was fun but touristy, so I decided to walk to a wine bar I had read about, back up the hill into the city center.  Around every corner was another staircase to climb.  I was just about to get pissed off all over again when I was rewarded with this view:



Ok, Genoa.  I forgive you.  Again.

I found the wine bar, called Caprice, and had probably my most relaxing dinner of the trip so far.  For 18 euro.  Isn’t that always the way it is. I sat outside, listening to the neighborhood Genoese laugh and talk….and I forgot all about those staircases.

Off to Calvi, on the north coast of Corsica, today.  I’m having a car pick me up here at my hotel in Genoa (hooray for no more driving!) and drive me to Nice, where I will hop my flight to Calvi.  More from there….

Cheers!

Traveling Girl

Warning: wine nerd post

What a fabulous experience I had in this tiny little corner of the wine world.

Piemonte is where nearly all the Nebbiolo (the grape that the great Barolos and Barbarescos are made from) in the world is grown.  It’s certainly planted other places sporadically, with mixed results, but really it’s mostly just here.  Here in this somewhere around 20 km stretch of earth (and that’s the larger region) in Northwest Italy.  When you think about it, it’s just a speck on the map.  Astonishing that any bottle of Barolo that anyone, ever, has ever drank came from within eyesight on a clear day of where I am writing this.  I think that’s pretty amazing.

And sort of grounding in a weird way.  In this time that we live in when we can get pretty much anything anywhere anytime… I mean, with Amazon you barely need to leave your house….I like that there are still things that are only in one place.  And, sure, also at your neighborhood wine store, but even that bottle traveled to you from this one little spot on the globe.

Here is a map of the Langhe, the larger region:


And here is the vineyard map of Barolo, the tiny subset of the Langhe where I did all my tasting yesterday:

I’m not sure if you’ll be able to see it in this panoramic photo, but each little hill in the distance is a town with a castle (some repurposed and functioning, a couple abandoned). What you can see here is basically all of Barolo. This is taken from one of the towns on the edge of the region, La Morra:

I thought I knew what Barolo tasted like.  Cherry, leather, oak, dry, great with food, etc, etc…..and yes, it is all those things, but IN OH SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS.  I had no idea.  I tasted some wildly different wines yesterday, all from this tiny region.  Some I liked, some I hated, some I would trade my car for.

From what I understood during my quick education yesterday, most of the differences come from the soil.  It changes from sand to clay to stone as you move south and east here (I think…someone correct me if I have that backwards).  Turns out I like the wines from warmer years and from the stonier-soiled areas.  They are big and muscular, but still oh so elegant.  Like a strong man in a perfectly tailored suit…. ah, but I digress… 

I am staying at a renovated castle called Castello di Sinio, located very close to the actual town of Barolo.  The owner, Denise Pardini, is originally from Luca but grew up in San Francisco.  She is quite the renaissance woman – a chef, a former tech executive, and all around wealth of knowledge about this region.  She arranged my driver and all my tastings for me, and kicked off my morning with a little primer on the region and its soils in front of the detailed vineyard elevation map in her lobby.

My first tasting was at Massolino, a larger producer that is still making their wines in the traditional way, which is to say using very large and old Slovenian oak barrels instead of new French oak barriques, and mostly blending the grapes from different plots rather than doing much in the way of single-vineyard bottlings (they do have a few).  I was sort of wondering what Denise was thinking…. the people there couldn’t have been nicer, but the wine was just ok, and it seemed like a boring way to kill my morning. 

Ah… but it turns out there was wisdom in Denise’s plan…it set me up to understand the rest of the day.

After lunch I went to Paulo Scavino, where I was met by the very charming Riccardo Sgarra.  Who, upon finding out I was from Colorado, immediately asked me if I knew Bobby Stuckey at Frasca.  I felt at home right away.  The good people in food and wine always know each other, don’t they?

Scavino is more modern – they still use some big Slovenian oak barrels, but mostly new French oak, and they take such care and pleasure in showcasing their different vineyards….Riccardo calls them their “children”.  All loved, but all different.  Everyone who loves wine has a hundred photos like this, but come on…. it’s so gorgeous I couldn’t resist…

And the smell in those rooms…I love it every time.  A grapey, musty, oaky, damp, old smell.  Like you just stepped into an old book holding a glass of your favorite wine.

My last tasting of the day was actually at a wine bar/store in Barolo, and Denise had listed it on my itinerary as a “master class”.  The class (of one) was led by the very enthusiastic, if (I’m just guessing here) slightly hungover, Stefano.  Stefano is a human encyclopedia of Langhe wines.  He is also an enormous George Michael fan.  So my phenomenal 2 1/2 hours of tasting with him was accompanied by every George Michael song ever recorded.  Some I had actually never even heard.  It was totally weird and funny and kind of perfect.

I tasted 14 wines, and absolutely loved 8 of them.  Stefano started with a couple of rather generic regional wines, then narrowed down, picking the next round based on what I liked best from the one before.  He literally clapped his hands with excitement when I described a wine that I liked using terms he considered correct for describing Barolo.  Stefano is one of those lovely people that makes you feel smart and charming even when you likely aren’t being either one.  

Buzzed and feeling smart and charming, I bought two cases to ship back.

Interesting side note here:  Stefano informed me that until recently, they could use any shipping company they wanted to send wine to the US.  But as of June, the administration slapped a bunch of new regulations on the shipping and importing of wines, and during the week it happened, hundreds of bottles from his store got hung up in transit – couldn’t enter the US, couldn’t go back – and spoiled.  Stefano is still understandably pretty angry about this.  He brightened when he told me the solution – they simply found a shipping company run by an Italian that had a friend in the administration.  Then he said “we lived under Burlusconi – we know how this works.  We know your new government better than you do”.  

Granted, this is just one guy that owns a wine store in one little town in Italy, but still.  It gave me a shudder to hear that.

To end on a positive note though, I have not in fact pretended to be Canadian on this trip as threatened 😉. I’ve found Italians so far to be friendly, kind, helpful, and stupendously generous.  Even, or maybe especially, to Americans.  They are justifiably proud of their cities and happy to give you directions or a recommendation for where to eat, the latter with so much enthusiasm it’s infectious. 

I’m actually finishing this post in Torino – I arrived in time for lunch and sat at a lovely cafe on one of the piazzas.  It’s a gorgeous city, looks almost Parisian.  I’ll head back out shortly to walk around and find some dinner.  Then off to Genoa tomorrow.

Cheers!

Traveling Girl

Hello from Piemonte!

My day started a little chaotically – I finally kicked my jet lag and slept well, which is to say I overslept.  Quickly packed and had coffee and caught a taxi to the rental car office, then had to try to navigate a rental car out of central Milan in rush hour.  Whose idea was this again?

Siri just kept saying “return to the route…return to the route”.  Helpful.  Thanks, Siri.  

Once my phone’s GPS picked up where I was and Siri started making sense, though, I was on my way.  I gave myself three hours for a two hour drive, and good thing.  Most of the last extra hour was spent finding the restaurant once I got to Alba.  Did you ever see the episode of “Master of None” where the two friends get their rental car stuck in a narrow street in Italy?  Yeah.  Siri, it would appear, does not make judgement calls on where you should drive.  She just knows where the restaurant is.  Which is to say down a byzantine collection of twisted charming cobblestone streets that you would just adore if you were walking them…just not so much driving.

What’s extra amusing is that when I checked into my hotel in nearby Sinio late this afternoon, one of the employees gave me a map and a quick rundown of the area, ending with “and this is Alba – very charming old city, they don’t allow cars there”.  You don’t say.  (Epilogue: I found my way out, parked at a market outside of town, walked back in, and all was well.  Made the lunch reservation with time to spare)

But back to lunch.

[I realized I’ve skipped a few events – shopping in Milan yesterday (my credit card is bruised), a great dinner at Tano Passami L’olio last night (ditto, and worth it) – you’ll just have to take me out for a glass of wine when I get home to get those stories, because I’m too enthralled with the lunch I had today to write about anything else.]

Ristorante Piazza Duomo is, of course, down a tiny side street and damn near impossible to find.  Here’s the charming pink door that presents itself to you like platform 9 3/4 to Hogwart’s once it deems you’ve worked hard enough to find it.

You press a bell, explain that yes, you have a reservation, wait….wait….then click!  The door unlocks.  A nice lady who realizes you have no sense of direction and your Italian is terrible calls to you from upstairs to please come up and watch your step.  The stairwell is musty and plain, pea green concrete with metal railings, which really just serves to make the actual restaurant and dining room all the more charming when you enter.  I was seated in the corner, an absolutely perfect people watching perch, and this photo really doesn’t even do it justice.

As some of you know, I was a little nervous about this lunch.  Piazza Duomo is ranked as the 17th best restaurant in the world on the top 50 list, and has three Michelin stars.  It has eight tables in the main dining room and one private room where someone was having a birthday party.  (I know, right?  Who??  I was dying to know too).   I counted it as divine intervention that I got a reservation for one for lunch on a Tuesday.

I figured I would at the very least feel a little awkward.  Several hours of multiple courses, all the formality… surely I would feel self-conscious.  Nope.  So here’s the good news and the bad news:  everyone is on their phones, even at a place like this.  Two other Americans even had some serious camera equipment and were clearly recording the whole experience as if they were producing a documentary (who knows, maybe they were).  So while I mostly kept mine put away, that did give me the freedom to take photos of the food, send a text or two when there was a lull in the service…but honestly I was almost consistently entertained by the parade of beautiful food and wine.  It was like being part of a performance art project for one.

I ordered the larger and more traditional of the tasting menus, which was 11 courses.  Plus three “aperitivos”, each containing 3-6 different little bites.  I believe I counted 22 different bites/courses by the time it wrapped up 3 1/2 hours later.  The wine pairing would have been five glasses of wine, and since I had to drive to my hotel and ending up in an Italian jail with a DUI on day four of my vacation seemed like a bad idea, the somm let me pick three nicer glasses and just did small pours.  And they were each absolutely gorgeous.

I do actually have photos of all the courses, but rather than clutter this post with 22 photos, what follows are my favorites:

These teeny tiny mushrooms in strong peppery olive oil were heavenly on a cracker spread with liver paté 


Olives? No. Too easy. The green “olive” is veal tartare. The black “olive” is langoustine tartare

This “sandwich” is two chickpea crackers stuffed with sardines, grana padano, chicory, and mayonnaise.  The “tomato soup” is a tomato, orange, olive oil, and Campari cocktail

Sea bass ceviche with fresh herbs and flowers and lemon olive oil 

Sous-vide cod on potato cream – tied for my favorite with the next one

Polenta with rabbit ragout.  This one looks like nothing but was SO delicious.  I could have eaten four of these.  I wanted more and I can still taste it….

I’m staying tonight at Castello di Sinio, a honest to goodness castle that an American couple (she is amusingly quick to tell you, though, that she is originally from Luca even though she grew up in San Francisco – I met her when I checked in) renovated.  They used to be in the wine business, apparently, so they arranged my wine tour tomorrow.  I have a hunch I’m in good hands.  Two winery tours, lunch, and a master class in Barolo and Barbaresco in the late afternoon.

I may not need to eat for the rest of the week after today, but more wine sounds lovely….

Cheers!

Traveling Girl

“Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.” 
~ Ray Bradbury

One of the many reasons that I think travel is so great – for everyone, but for me especially – is that it really forces you to let go.  You can have the most airtight, perfectly organized itinerary and an expertly packed suitcase that would turn on Marie Kondo, but things are still going to go wrong.  Not that anything has gone awry on the trip so far – far from it – but in the span of three weeks, something will.  I got a very small reminder of that last night, like a gentle nudge from the universe to remember to just go with the flow.

At the recommendation of the hotel concierge, I made a reservation at Restaurant Giacomo for dinner.  (An aside here – when I asked where she thought I should go, she first asked me what I would like to eat… meat or fish?  I love that the Italians start with the food, not the restaurant.)   The taxi driver, though, took me to Giacomo Bistrot.  Same owners, totally different restaurant.  But whatever….they had a table, so I happily sat while they called the other restaurant to let them know that the confused American would not be needing the other reservation.

What followed was so lovely….and I am sure everyone says that about their first meal in Italy, but it wasn’t just the food.  Though the food was fabulous.  Apparently truffles from Alba, just a couple hours drive from Milan, are available earlier than usual this year…lucky me.  This risotto with fresh shaved white truffle was absulutely transcendant.

I took long enough to eat dinner that two different couples sat next to me.  The first had two adorable small dogs with them – dogs are allowed everywhere here, which I love.  All small dogs, though, to be fair…it’s not like anyone brings a Rottweiler to dinner.  This little lady posed for me as they were paying their check.

The second couple was from Saudi Arabia and after chatting for all of two minutes, I learned that the husband got his undergraduate degree in….wait for it….Pueblo, Colorado.  Gotta love a small world.  I loved having someone with whom to share something I thought was so funny – in the all of 8 hours I had been in Milan so far, two separate people (both hotel employees, just chatting and being friendly), upon finding out that I was from Colorado, asked me if I rode a horse.  Well, I said, I have ridden a horse before, but on a regular basis, no.  They both seemed really disappointed to hear that.  They imagined, I suppose, that everyone in Colorado lives on a ranch.  Yes, said the man from Saudi Arabia, everyone thinks we have a pet camel.  His wife laughed and nodded.  We’re all strangers somewhere, aren’t we.

I’m off to shop and eat….Milan is known for its fashion and its food, and I plan to soak up as much of both as possible today.

Cheers!

TG

Sitting at DIA with my first glass of wine of the trip! Not a fan of airplane food as a rule, so my plan is to eat a nice dinner here, have a glass of wine or two, and sleep on the plane.  I land in Frankfurt tomorrow morning, then connect to Milan.

I’ll admit I’ve been nervous this week.  What was I thinking, booking a three week trip??  Three weeks is a long time.  I’ve traveled a lot, and traveled a lot alone, but never for this long.  So you, dear readers, are my company.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

A precious friend of mine shared some wisdom with me this week – she said it’s possible to be scared and brave at the same time.  You don’t have to pick.  You can both.  Or many things.  And so I am.  Brave and excited.  And a little bit scared.

Most of my nervousness slowly morphed into excitement today, and I know myself well enough to know I’ll be fine once I’m on the plane.  Then I’ll stop thinking stupid thoughts like what if my house burns down while I’m gone or what if this president gets us into a war and I get stuck and can’t get home….you know, that sort of super rational sounding stuff.

So that got me thinking about antidotes to fear.  I’ve narrowed it down to three big ones:

1.  Community – the people we love and the people that love us make us brave.  We feel stronger together.  I just talked to three of my best friends (thanks for calling, ladies!) sitting here with my burger and my glass of rosé, and I felt braver and stronger and cooler immediately.

2.  Gratitude – you know how I feel about gratitude.  It really was tied for #1.  I get to go on this trip.  How amazing is that?  

3.  Wine.  Duh.

Signing off from DIA –  

Mostly brave.

Cheers!

Traveling Girl

Ah, the question that has spawned millions of disagreements among travel partners.  I’m a carry on girl, myself, but I wasn’t always – a solo trip to France in 2012 saw me sweaty and struggling with three bags in a train station with broken elevators… it wasn’t pretty.  I nearly missed my train and swore I’d pack lighter from then on.   Here’s what’s funny:  now, after lots of trial and error and practice, I can pack for this trip to Italy for three weeks and not check luggage… but a weekend in the mountains here in Colorado?  Forget it.  I’m like Paris Hilton going to the Hamptons.  In my defense, the weather can turn on a dime, so you really do need multiple outfits in that situation, but I digress…

It’s certainly not always possible to carry on – if you are traveling with kids, for instance, or if it’s super cold where you’re going.  I am convinced, though, that the less you pack, the happier you will be on your trip.  Travel demands so much decision making energy, don’t waste any brain power on what you’re going to wear.  Bring a good black dress that you can wear anywhere and save your mental capacity for figuring out how to say “I’d like another glass of wine, please” in Italian or Spanish or Greek.

So in preparation for this trip, I’ve pulled out some old favorites and am testing a new carry-on.  New thing first:  I have read lots of great reviews on a new luggage company called Away.  I’ve been a Tumi loyalist forever, but Away’s carry on seems to hold the same amount and is 4 pounds lighter.  Sometimes on flights overseas it’s the weight that gets you even if your bag is the right size – they’ll make you check it if it’s too heavy.  So having the bag itself weigh 4 lbs less is a big deal.  Plus it will charge your phone!  Seriously.  It will.  And they give a 100 day trial, so why not.  Here’s the link and I’ll let you know how I like it:

Away Carry On

And for the favorites…. here’s my thought:  I’ll list my favorite travel items here, and everyone please post yours in the comments.  I don’t know anyone who travels frequently that doesn’t love new ideas on products or ways to make it easier and more comfortable.  Or even just more fashionable.  As an aside, I was at a wine dinner a few months ago, and a friend of mine asked the winemaker, who travels something like 250 days a year, what his top 3 travel must haves/must dos were.  His answer:  1.  A foam roller.  He has a hollow one that he can stuff things in and pack easily.  Have to say I wouldn’t have thought of that.  2.  He drinks tons of water on the plane.  Yep, we all know we should do that.  And we rarely do.  3.  He works out asap when he lands.  Swears it helps jet lag.  I’ll vouch for that one. 

My faves:

I have a scarf that I bring on almost every long trip.  It’s not cheap but it’s soft, pretty, and can also be pillow or a wrap with a dress.  Here’s the link:  White+Warren scarf.  

Headphones.  I LOVE my small Bose noise-canceling earbuds.  I slept next to an infant on an overnight flight to Spain last summer with them.  To go with them, download an album called “Sleep” by Max Richter.  You can find it on iTunes. 8 hours of ambient music created with a neuroscientist to (somehow) mimic the stages of sleep.  I’m not sure how it works, but it does.

An extra battery to keep everything charged.  This one is small, relatively light, and can charge almost anything.  Nice for the flight, and for tossing in your bag to make sure your phone doesn’t run out of juice and leave you map-less when you are, for instance, lost in Paris with no sense of direction or idea where your hotel is.  Just for instance.

Compression socks.  Yes, mine are orange.  And my feet don’t swell and my legs feel great when I land.

For those of you who don’t know me or haven’t seen me in awhile, I have braces right now, so I have a newfound appreciation for really good toothbrushes.  I can’t see lugging my Water-Pik to Italy, so I was thrilled to find this Toothbrush.  The case charges it, which I think is just too cool. 

To pack for three weeks without checking, you do need to get comfortable with two things:  occasionally washing a few things in the sink, and paying up for dry cleaning at a hotel if you need it.  Neither one is a big deal at ALL, especially compared to, say, being without your luggage for 36 hours upon landing in Paris.  At which point you will convince yourself that you might as well go shopping at that Armani boutique next to the hotel – I mean really what choice do you have?  I think I am still paying off that outfit.

I pack a black dress, a jacket, two scarves (depending on weather), two tank tops, a skirt, one pair of jeans, one nicer top, black flats that I can also walk around a city in during the day, underwear, a bathing suit if I’m going someplace that I might want it, and workout/hiking clothes (two sets, tops – you can wash this stuff super easily and it dries fast), and I wear my running or hiking shoes on the plane.  That more than fits, even once you add in toiletries and gadgets, so I’m usually able to add another dress or two.  Obviously this is all easier the warmer the climate is wherever you are going.

I promised a review of cards, etc, but I found an Article on Travel & Leisure’s site that actually does a much better job than I would have.  I personally use the Chase Sapphire Reserve card – for my spending patterns (i.e. Pretty much all travel and dining, for which they give extra points) it works marvelously.  Just remember two cardinal rules:  make sure you have a card that doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees, and NEVER use a credit card at an ATM.  Only use a debit card to take out cash.  The credit card will categorize it as a cash advance.

That’s all the travel wisdom I have.  Every trip brings a little more, one of the many things I love about traveling.  Please share yours in the comments – I will consolidate all the recommendations into another post.

Cheers!

Traveling Girl



My glass is grateful for many things…

I started a gratitude practice about two years ago, going so far as to gift “The Five Minute Journal” to my entire family and several friends at Christmas.  As with anything, it resonated strongly with some and not so much with others, but I think there’s a reason that the concept of gratitude is having it’s moment in the sun here recently:  the theme at large resonates with us.  There is SO much to be annoyed with and afraid of right now, and we need the counter-argument more than ever.  We all need a way to be reminded to be grateful for where we are.  For who we are.  For the gifts we have.

I ran across an article this week that prompted this post.  I follow an author named Seth Godin, whose books are mainly about marketing, but he did an interview on gratitude that I thought was terrific.  Here’s the link, and my favorite quote from the interview:

“My point is that acting “as if” is way underrated. Act “as if.” If you start acting grateful, you will be grateful. If you are grateful, you will start feeling confident. If you are confident, you will start feeling safe. If you feel safe then you will be creative.”

And here’s the Five Minute Journal, for those of you to whom I haven’t already given one.  Or if you need a new one, mom. 🙂

This does actually relate to traveling….

My sister and I got a wonderful lesson in gratitude in January, and it came with a gorgeous view instead of a bonk on the head, which is how most of my life lessons tend to arrive.  Our brother and our now sister-in-law got married in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where she grew up and where much of her family still lives.  The wedding was an amazing experience for our small band of Americans that made the trip – such a fabulous celebration of life and love and family (and amazing food).  The ceremony and the reception were an almost impossible combination of elegant and creative and outrageously fun.

The day after the wedding, my sister and I headed to Adam’s Peak, a mountain in the interior of the country that is holy to several major religions, due to a footprint at the top, deemed to be that of either Adam, or Shiva, or Buddha, depending upon whom you ask.  Here’s what floored us:  we got up at 1 am to start the hike in order to arrive at the top at sunrise.  Not only were we not alone, we were accompanied up the 5,000+ stairs (yes, you read that right.  five. thousand. stairs.) by pilgrims of all ages, many very old, some clearly sick and being helped by relatives, some with no shoes, many not dressed properly.

In our REI hiking gear and sturdy shoes, we kept any complaints about the arduous climb to ourselves, and just took it all in.  We were instantly reminded to be grateful to be warm, dry, young, and strong.  We climbed up behind and alongside and past families, barefoot kids, dogs, monks, grandmothers, other tourists…. five thousand stairs makes a great equalizer.  The view at the top did not disappoint – it was, in a word, breathtaking.  But it was the climb up in the pre-dawn darkness that will stick with us.

I am so grateful to be able to travel, to explore other cultures, to share meals and wine and ideas and experiences with people all over the world.  I’m grateful for the friends and family that I miss when I’m traveling, the career I have back home, and the amazing team I get to work with.

What are you grateful for?

Cheers!

Traveling Girl

This day has a nose of:  anticipation

With notes of: restlessness and antsy procrastination (There are about 47 other things I should be doing right now, but this is way more fun.  Should I go ahead and start packing?  Maybe a glass of wine is in order…)

Well, not to be anticlimactic, but I do have a few weeks to kill before I actually leave for Italy.  I’ll be in Brevard, NC for the better part of a week between now and then, and you never know what adventures I might manage to find there, but while we’re waiting….

There are a few travel blogs and sites that I follow and have learned a lot from, whether in the form of travel tips or just a good old shift in perspective, which this Traveling Girl often needs.  My favorite right now is Roads and Kingdoms, and this recent post made me laugh out loud.  Don’t even pretend you don’t do some of these things when you’re getting ready for a big trip:

Roads and Kingdoms

And a great one for “travel hacking” is Chris Guillebeau’s The Art of Non-Conformity.  His travel hacking section is full  of great tips and things I didn’t know:

Chris Guillebeau’s travel hacking resources

In the planning for this Italy trip, I’ve found two completely new-to-me things that I just love.  One is a website:  Rome2Rio.  It will tell you all the ways to get from one city to another anywhere in the world – literally all your options… flights, trains, ferries, buses.  Super useful if you are, for instance, trying to get yourself somewhat soberly from small town to small town in Piedmont.

The other is a car service that operates out of most major world cities:  Black Lane.  (hat tip: RD..thank you!!).  This one has saved my ass already on this upcoming adventure.  I bought a flight out of one city without checking the train schedule from the city I would be coming from to make sure I could get there in time for the flight.  No train.  Oops.  Black Lane isn’t cheap, but it’s a whole lot less expensive than having to buy a new flight and book an extra hotel room.  And much more lovely than a 6 hour bus ride, which was my other option.

I am a financial advisor in my real life, so I’ll do another post on the best travel credit cards and tips for dealing with cash and finances when overseas.  If you’re really into the credit card/points/miles game, Chris Guillebeau’s site stays pretty up to date on the best offers out there.

Cheers!

Traveling Girl

After years of threatening to take my travel writing beyond group emails, here it is, an actual blog… and just in time for a trip to Italy.  It seems all my traveling friends have been there, though it has somehow avoided my passport until now.  I leave September 2 for three weeks, which is, I believe, the longest vacation I have taken since I was about 14.  Time to fix that.  I am so very grateful and excited and positively teenage-girl giddy to be taking this trip.  I’ll be in the Piedmont region for a week, then hiking with a group in Corsica and Sardinia for 10 days.  My glass is packed and I can’t wait.  Andiamo!