After a fantastic and tiring wedding weekend, we finish packing just in time for our pickup (thanks Lynn!) to our 6pm flight from LAX->LHR. We got an exit row, giving us plenty of legroom, and it was my first flight with the personal video screens including the flight data. This was very nice, and made it especially easy to sleep just the right amount to be in sync with local time. With the long security lines in London, we only had 30 minutes of a two hour layover to relax, stopping by a pub in the terminal, having some Boddington's and food. The flight to Nice was easy.

6pm (Local time), land in Nice, taxi to the Hotel Windsor, A charming little hotel, each room is indivudally painted and decorated by a different artist. Our room also had a little loft with two more beds, great for a family of four. The hotel also had a wonderful courtyard area, and was walking distance from the beach and the central train station.

After cleaning up, we walked toward the beachfront, scoping out dinner places, eventually choosing Le Koudou, where we had a great meal. After dinner, our first gelato, then trying to get into the local casino, but my sandals weren't up to the dress code. Walking home, we found a long 3rd St. Promenade type place, with lots of shops, bars, restaurants and streets closed to vehicular traffic.

7 Sept.

There was no clock in our hotel (a common theme we found here). I woke up a couple times, didn't know what time it was, and just went back to sleep. Eventually we woke up to find out it was noon! We stopped by a local cafe for breakfast, walked around Nice some more, enough for my new "euro style" sandals to give me some good blisters, grabbed more food, then dressed up for Monaco! I pulled out my new suit, Jonalyn put on a nice dress, and even stopped by a local salon to get her nails done.

We walked to the train station, and caught the next train to Monte Carlo. This is an easy (10-15min) and cheap (3€) ride, giving some good views of the Mediterranean Sea, broken up by too many tunnels. There's a great buildup as you enter Monte Carlo, as the tunnel is long enough that you can't see Monaco at all while approaching. The train station is in the middle of the tunnel, after walking through a long corridor, you exit right at Saint Devot, the first corner of the Grand Prix circuit, right on the harbor!

We walked up the hill to the Casino, stopping for some drinks along the way. In preparation for this part of the trip, I packed my new suit, and wore it out this night, sweating profusely in the humid heat, in order to meet the well-known jacket & tie dress code. Upon paying our 10€ each and entering, I found I was the only one following that dress code! The tables were too high for our budget, but we happily lost 20€ at the slots.

We left to eat dinner at the Tip-Top Bar, which I had heart about on F1 broadcasts, sampling some great food and local wine. We hit up the "other casino", losing just enough on craps to cover the free drinks, before having to head back to catch the midnight train back to Nice. We had a little drama at the train station, needing to buy tickets from an automated machine that didn't take American credit cards or cash (note: keep plenty of change with you!), and ended up getting change from a friendly local. Though you can get on the train without a ticket, and nobody ever came to check tickets on the short rides.

Never getting our requested wake-up call, we woke up at 10am. We went to the beach after breakfast. The beach in Nice is made up of pebbles, and half of it is roped off in private beaches. Our hotel has a deal with one of the beaches, where for a few € we got lounges and an umbrella. After a couple hours here, we were ready to get back to Monaco. We arrived several hours earlier than the previous day, and were able to walk around more, covering almost the entire Grand Prix track. It was interesting to see how central the race is there, as most stores had souveneir items for the race, and there was even a large shop filled with F1 collector's items.

We stopped by an Irish bar to have a pint of Guiness, walked down by the yachts in the harbor. These look very impressive up close. This has got to be _the_ way to see the Riviera. We ate at the at La Rascasse, a restaruant named after the corner of the same name (or vice-versa?). The cars scream right around this cafe during the race, and a table here costs $2000 per person on race day.

Jonalyn lost a bit more on the craps table, and we headed back to Nice on the midnight train again.

We purchased an alarm clock at a local shop to ensure we'd be up for our 10am train to Milan. The 4 hour ride made more stops than I had expected. We ran into an older couple from Seattle/Microsoft on their honeymoon on the train.

We stayed at the Hotel Brunelleschi This was a very nice hotel in the center of Milan near the Duomo (which also gives great subway access), and had a great breakfast included. Still no clock.

We spent the afternoon touring the shopping district of Milan. Starting at the Duomo, and moving north, the number of high-end shops is astounding, easily topping Rodeo Drive. We found a stock house, the "Marshalls" of Milan, and a Ferrari Store, 5 stories dedicated apparel and souveniers for the F1 team. Though we found prices in the Gucci store were 10% less than in LA, Jonlayn didn't end up buying anything.

Italian Grand Prix! Electing to take public transportation, we caught a quick subway to the train station, then an easy train to the track in Monza, which drops you off right by the Lesmo corner on Grand Prix days. A hike to our seats found us in the front row of a section full of Ferrari fans with a few Alonso fans from Spain sprinkled in. It seams every other peron had an air horn, with enough juice to go all day. The cheering started before the race, when their driver popped up on the jumbotron, or the broadcast helicopter came overhead putting our stands on worldwide TV.

The race was incredible, the power of the cars is amazing. As we were in the front row, we didn't sit at all, leaning on the railing to get close to the action. You can see and hear our view of the start and beginning of the third lap on video. Alonso made a charge from 10th to 3rd, to the delight of the Spanish fans, then his engine blew up, to the greater delight of the Ferrari fans, who were then rewarded with a Shumacher victory. Immediately after the race, the fans stream onto the track, towards the podium hanging over the track. The people sang along with the Italian anthem. Following the race, Shumacher announced he would retire at the end of the season.

We took a wrong turn on the way back trying to find a quicker way to the train station, giving us a 1 hour detour. When we made it back to the station, we found a long line waiting for the train. This served as a reminder that it's easy to get in when the 100,000 people arrive at all times in the morning, but when everybody leaves at once, you'll have a bottleneck.

Too tired to attempt a trip to lake Cuomo, we finished up Milan with some more shopping before heading to Florence. A 3 hour train ride, in 1st class (marginally better and more expensive than the second class we took before, and well worth it) dropped us off in the historic city. We stayed at the Resedenzia Johlea II, a charming little B&B type place that my parents would love. The most affordable place we stayed at, it was not a traditional hotel, as much as a several units in a building converted into a mini-hotel. I'd recommend trying the Johlea I if available, 2 doors down the street, as it's on the top floors instead of the bottom, and has a great roofdeck to spend time on. After cleaning up, we went to a local restaurant followed by a wine bar.

We wandered around Florence in the late morning. We made a stop at an Internet cafe to check out wedding pictures and send some emails. When our 30 minutes was almost up, the lady at the desk started complaining about how we didn't have the right card (all people need to register for a card to use the Internet), even though we used the one she gave us! We spent some time discussing how that happened, with her refusing to believe she gave us the wrong card, and us refusing to believe we used a card other than the one she gave us. Apparently Italian law requires all Internet use to be registered, so hopefully their database aren't linked well enough to give me a lifetime ban on Internet use in Italy.

We headed to our 2:00 Chianti Wine tour. We boarded a bus, and drove to an old castle converted into a winery. A quick tour was followed by a tasting along with bread, salami, cheese, and olive oil. We continued to a little town for 30 minutes of wandering through the shops, and yet another little town for dinner.

We took a walking tour of Florence in the morning, ending with a trip to the Acadamy to see David. We had a lovely tour guide, who had a few rants on how when Florence was the capital of Italy, the government ruined some of the charm by tearing down old buildings and putting up more modern buildings, but that was over 100 years ago. We took a tour of the Ulfese in the afternoon, with some rants from the guide about how the artwork was not being properly taken care of. Florence was flooded with tourists. In Nice and Italy, the locals didn't seem to speak much English, but there were so many English speaking tourists that everybody speaks English at all the shops and restaruants.

An easy 2 hour train ride to Rome, which we almost missed due to the clock in the cafe being 20 minutes late. It was raining when we arrived, and with our heavy bags, we took a taxi 5 blocks to our Hotel Alpi . The nicest (and most expensive) of the hotels we stayed at. We found an Internet-ready TV (the hotel has what looks like x86 Linux boxes handling on-demand entertainment and web browsing), and spent the rainy afternoon fixing our Internet cravings, including seeing the official wedding photos for the first time. It was still raining during dinner, but the taxi we took to the restaurant recommended by 2 of our books was stalled in traffic, so we eneded up walking half-way anyways.

We took an open bus tour of Rome. After taking one loop finishing at the train station, we attempted to take the Subway back to the Vatican, but that was foiled by a strike. Hopping back on the bus, we took the long way back, which proved crucial, as we missed the Sistene Chapel by half an hour (it closes at 3pm). We did get to see the St. Peter's Basilica before heading back and having a wonderful dinner at the restaurant next to our hotel.

5am wake up to get to the airport for our flight. Our 1:30 layover in LHR was not enough time to get through the security lines, and we missed our connection to LAX (and any chance of making Aaron & Julie's wedding ceremony) by 5 minutes. We waited 3 hours for the next flight, still got our sweet exit-row seats, and made it to the reception at the end of dinner. After a good showing at the wedding, we came home to crash.

General Travel Notes

• When we had to rush to take the Midnight train from Monaco to Nice, we wished we had stayed in Monaco. When we payed the hotel bill leaving Nice, we're glad we stayed in Nice.
• We didn't bring a laptop, since I didn't think Jonalyn could resist the temptation to check up on her work email. However, it would have been better for watching DVDs on the plane (instead of the smaller, portable device we brought, thanks to Rachel, which was still very nice to have), allowed us to keep a better log of our trip than this post-trip brain dump we have here, back up our photos, and look up restaurants and directions in our hotels with Internet access or wireless points nearby. Next time, I'll bring it, and null route Jonalyn's work email.
• Next time I'll take an F1 tour that gives us a bus from our hotel to the track and back. There was a Sweedish group at our hotel, we thought about crashing their bus.
• Jonalyn is a big fan of the organized group tours, which we had through Chianti wine country, we'll do more of those tours next time.
• The food was great everywhere, as well as most of the wine (some of the wine was just "good"). We found that tracking down recommended restaurants was very difficult in the unplanned old cities, and the random restaurants we tried were as good or better than the ones we tracked down.
• We didn't think to bring watches, as we use our cell phones at home, and we're on vacation! But when you have to catch trains and tours, you need one. An alarm clock to make up for the missing ones in the hotel room was also essential.