part one - gettin' my groove back

hey all... i'm back! part one of my comeback tour has been completed. dolly, anita and i had a fabulous time driving through the cote d'azur and heading through genoa, italy and up towards the great lakes of como, lugano and maggiore. right now, i'm back at dolly and andrew's flat and we just said goodbye to good ol' anita as she catches her flight back to vancouver. we all agreed that our trip was splendid and we were faced with no major issues other then the crazy traffic in milano and the "what the fu" was with the 24/ore automatic gas pumps?

we flew into toulon, france and were blessed with amazing weather. our first stop was in bandol, france where we checked into a logis de france that must of had the best bathroom/soaker tub ever. though we attempted to get anita on board with our morning jogging routine, we still managed to get her to lace up her sneakers. we ran along the bandol waterfront and bought a few knickknacks before we packed our things and headed along the rivera up to st. tropez. i would have to say for this leg of the trip, the best beach that we ended up on was in the pampelonne area of st. tropez. there were several areas to turn into but we picked the best - right beside club 55.

so onto cannes next and we only stayed there for one night in this interesting little hotel called chantilly. i wouldn't really recommend anyone to stay there as the church bells kept ringing on the half (all night long) and we had such a ghetto shower it was nuts. cannes was a very busy city and we managed to go dancing one night at the most pretentious place i have ever been too. the kind of place where you're separated by a velvet rope and the head bouncer gets to decide who's worthy enough to enter. oh, please!

we moved on to eze village which was fabulous. if you ever get a chance, go to the area around eze, villefranche sur mer and beaulieu - breathtaking views. if i ever have an opportunity to stay in france for a month it would definitely be back to this area.

a few more days of the cote d'azur sunshine and then we headed to genoa, italy and up north through milan to lake como. i must say driving even in the outskirts of milan is chaotic. people drive like mad men and there's so many scooters and congested roundabouts that it can be really messy. think we ended up tacking on an additional hour or so because we were driving in circles - ahhhhh!

nonetheless, we made it and i must say that lake como is a jem. we landed a private room with a terrace (not the fanciest of hotels) but it was perfect after a day of driving. and fabio, the hotel manager was eager to speak to us and tell us where to go and what to do. this hotel was only minutes away from george clooney's villa in laglio and the piccola hotel down the road made seafood risotto to die for.

a few days in lake como and then we headed up north towards switzerland and the lake lugano area. we were told not to spend too much time there so we checked into a hotel for two days. i would have to say that lugano is a bigger town and interesting because it's a swiss city but it still had the feel of italy and the spoken language around you was italian. we walked along the lake one night but the night markets were horrible and there really wasn't a lot to do there. note, food for some reason is more expensive in switzerland even when you do the swiss franc conversion. one night we went out for fondue chinoise and it was the most expensive meal we had during our entire trip and it wasn't even that great!

now onto the last portion of our trek. we drove into the lake maggiore area and stayed in a very spacious hotel in the verbania area. we had our last two nights there so it was perfect...a small terrace with a view of the lake and a great little restaurant around the corner. dolly and i jogged for 3 miles along the beautiful lakeside and the later that day took the ferry over to isola bella (several small occupied islands in the middle of the lake). though lake maggiore is gorgeous, i'm still favouring lake como and hope to go back there again someday.