Santa Margherita Food Quest

I came to Europe without any concrete plan (I get stressed out with too much planning, and since every weekend is usually a new location/destination/adventure I don't like to think about any of my trips until the weekend/wedding I have prior to it has been completed and taken care of.) plus I knew that Mrs. Katie is the Queen of Guidebooks and would have an itinerary all mapped out for us that we could follow.

And I was right.

We woke up in beautiful Portovenere...it was a gloomy day...

But we hopped in the car and headed toward a little town called Riva Trigoso or something where Katie and Semmes had "The Best Pizza of their Life" while they were here on their honeymoon a few years ago.

In case you're wondering exactly where we are...we are here:

Unfortunately said pizza place was closed (we got a late start and got there around 3pm and in Europe if you try to eat anywhere between the hours of 2pm and 6pm they look at you like you are CARAZY). So anyway, they were closed...but we did find this delightful pastry shop with AMAZING desserty snacks!

Don't you just LOOOOVE this cute little cake?

We had this Vanilla Crunchy Cake that was TO DIE FOR.

Then we drove a little farther to Santa Margherita, the gorgeous little town just next to Portofino...

Soy pretty!

Awwwwww...

We LOVES being a professional third wheel!

We wandered around the town a bit...waiting for places to start serving dinner.

There were ham shops...

And pasta shops... teasing us with our every move.

Finally we settled on this cute little bar that provided us with Lambruscos (chilled sparkly red wine that AnneOnoue turned me onto) and lots of snacks.

FINALLY they started taking dinner orders and we had this DELICIOUS DELICIOUS pasta.

It looks like boring normal pasta...but the texture and the taste is honestly unlike anything I've ever found anywhere in the stupid USA.

Because we are major obeses and wanted to experience as much as possible, we ate not one but TWO dinners. Literally we finished our pasta dishes and walked up the street to another of Katie's favorite restaurants to have their weird raw seafood dish...

Their pesto minestrone (pesto was invented in the area, and it is AWESOME)...

And some PESTO PASTA that Semmesey loved almost as much as he loves his little baby...

Lake Como / Clooneyville!

My France to Italy adventure started with a little hiccup.

As I was driving east of Nice about to hit the Italy border I got a flat tire.

And of course car rental companies in Europe apparently don't provide you with a spare. So I pulled over to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere feeling a little scared and stressed since I was phone-less and unable to speak French.

Luckily a little French man who was whacking weeds on the side of the highway (he's the guy behind the divider in the pic below) walked over and offered to call a tow truck for me.

Within minutes the tow truck guy loaded me on his truck and helped me call the rental company and worked out with their insurance company which garage he should take me to. We go to that garage and they said they couldn't work on the car until the next day, so the insurance company told me to ditch the car and take a 100 euro cab ride to the airport and the rental company would give me a new one.

5 hours and 500 euro later (hopefully the rental insurance policy I bought will reimburse me) and I was in a new car and ready to go.

Really thankful for the kindness of complete strangers I could barely communicate with who helped me get through this little ordeal. 

I spent the night outside Milan. And the next morning headed up to Lake Como for the day. It's only a quick 45 minute drive from there. And it is SO beautiful.

I drove through the village of Laglio, where George Clooney's house is. His property is impossible to miss. There's a monstrous gate...

With the name of the Villa, which is well-known...

And scary signs everywhere.

The Cloons did a really good job covering the house from the street side. This the best view you can get from the parking garage across the street.

From there I headed to the Villa D'Este. The most beautiful hotel on Lake Como that everyone said I HAD to stay at/eat at if I wanted to Treat Yo Self.

It did not disappoint!

Laying low in South France

In 2000, my dad was here in Antheor, in this very spot where I'm currently hiding out, visiting friends Doug and Marie who my parents had met while living in Singapore...

On the first day he arrived to their mountaintop home and fell in love with it.

On the second day he looked at the house of a friend of a friend that was about to be put on the market.

On the third day he bought it.

Talk about an impulse buy!

We sold our house in 2008 when my parents divorced, here's what it looked like on our last trip the week we moved out.

So I've been hiding out here at Doug and Marie's for the past three days catching up on some work in between my wedding weekends.

They took me out for dinner that first night.

It's the off-season so the place, Tortue Beach Club, was pretty empty. But they thought it was a cool place to check out, and you can see how during peak season this place would probably be quite a scene.

We had a lovely dinner.

LOVES this built in ladder thing off the rocks. I wanna come back here.

These mussels were TO DIE FOR.

And then I had this crab in fillo thing that was also really delicious.

Turtle Beach! Loves it!

Day 2 was spent catching up on millions of emails and stuff.

Took a break during lunch when I smelled BACON coming from the kitchen.

Marie (who is an amazing cook) was roasting some bacon and shallots and cream sauce.

For Salmon!

I'm not a huge cooked-salmon person, but this was INCREDIBLE.

Doug took me for a ride around town in his new Porsche.

It was FAST.

Mr Doug is about to go in for heart surgery so he is really YOLOing this week.

Here I was screaming a little inside, thinking "please don't have a heart attack while we're going 170 km/h!"

We stopped by the marina to do some work on his yacht...

Then arrived home to find Marie preparing dinner!

It had been a gloomy day, but the clouds cleared around sunset giving us a magnificent dinner view.

Spicy fresh tomato pasta with fresh parmesan!!!

THEN

On my last day in Antheor. We rode hybrid electric bikes up into the mountains of the Massif d'Lesterel (those mountains you see from Marie's house).

From here you can get a view of all the houses of Antheor. Including our old one!

Our house is the now-hideous red one up at the top.

Love these little bikes! Makes pedaling uphill SOY EASY.

I heart France.

I was stopping every five minutes to take pics. It was so pretty.

Got home all sweaty.

This pool? The most amazing thing EVER.

Next up: Lake Como!