Thanks, California. We owe you.

Big hug to all of you who sent encouraging emails and FB messages.   That felt good!

Lots of questions about just what it is we’re doing, so I’ll tip my hand early and set this up.

Last year five of us “Jersey Girls” jumped from weekends in New York or Maryland to a ten-day trip up the California coast.  We rented a car in Los Angeles and slowly moved our way up to Napa.  Along the way we visited friends and classmates who now live in that beautiful state, as well as Venice Beach, Hearst Castle, Monterey Aquarium, Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco and Napa wineries.  To say we had a blast would be an understatement.  The most amazing part?  Five women in one hotel room each night and not one incident of bathroom rage.   Believe it.

Of course, the next logical step was to take this show global.  So over the Christmas holiday a few of us decided that France—with a toe touch into Italy—would be a good start.  I mean, a country that has been bouncing back from invasions since 1792 can certainly handle our little group, non?

By mid-January eight of us were on board and deposits had been put down on an apartment in Venice and a villa in St. Jeannet on the Riviera.  We added a hotel in Paris for a few days, ordered two cars for the Riviera portion, bought plane tickets and started squealing things like, “really? Are we really doing this?”  Which is pretty much what we’ve been repeating for the past five months.

Let me interject something important (to me) here:  This kind of trip is extremely doable on most budgets.  Splitting costs eight ways brings things like a villa on the Cote Azure within reality.  This is my first tip for your future travels.  Thank me later.

So there you have it.  Venice Beach to Venice, Italy.  Makes sense to us.  I’ll provide the names of the players soon (after I get permission) and one week from today (July 4^th) our adventure begins.

On second thought, let’s make that “our adventure continues.”