Warmest congratulations to Glenda and Massimo! Congratulazioni! The two were wed on Saturday, June 9, 2012 on the hill of Cimiez, in the city of Nice, France, along the jewel-toned Côte d’Azur of the French Riviera. It was a fairytale wedding with a nuptial mass at the Monastery at Cimiez, during which the bride laid a special bouquet [...]

We continued on to Monaco and the Casino Monte-Carlo. Who’d have imagined? All of us commented on the richness so thick you could cut it with a knife, that you could smell the money in the air. Subtlety and understatement are not included in the vocabulary of this pinpoint country. Monaco is a place of overstated extravagance. This [...]

The site of movies made and fortunes lost: Casino Monte-Carlo. This island of grass and cyclamen is just across the drive from the Casino. The reflective disk sculpture holds an image of the grand building. I zoomed in on the reflection and found a self-portrait. I’m squatting down – the triangular, black figure at the [...]

The “pinch me” part. Along our drive I had been seeing “travel-guide Italy”, scenic, seaside towns, cliffside old buildings, palm trees, polished hotels and trattorias. The statues, the weathered stone and white columns were brilliant against the blue sky we had been given, and were just the sights that make people book a vacation. Incredible. [...]