Posts from a Flashpacker

Some people travel to see their favorite band perform. 🎵 Some travel to run marathons. Others love to explore ruins, museums, and archaeological sites. 🏛️

Although I love all of those things, (except the marathon running 🏃‍♀️!)
I am passionate about art. 🎨

I spent the day in Montmartre, an historic and beautiful neighborhood in Paris famous for all of the artists who once lived there:

Picasso.
Degas.
Monet.
Renoir.
Toulouse-Lautrec
Suzanne Valadon
and Van Gogh.

Wowwwww. 🤩 Strolling along feeling the energy in the air of all of these incredible artists who once roamed the same streets was absolutely phenomenal.

You know that I love to do “free walking tours” and the one here was probably one of the best I’ve ever attended. Let me know if you want the information and I’ll connect you to the guy - he was so passionate and knowledgeable and offered a full multimedia presentation!

I spent some time in the tiny and quiet Musee de Montmarte which focused a lot on the artwork created about the cabarets and bars of the area, and especially featured the Moulin de la Galette. This historic restaurant was where many of the famous painters gathered to create art and enjoy food and drinks.

How amazing to be able to have a coffee ☕️ in the gardens of the museum where Renoir once lived and painted (you can see the swing hanging from the tree with a placard showing the original painting he did in 1876) and then to have dinner at the Moulin (which was built in 1622 as a grain mill) where his famous incomparable piece, Dance at the Moulin de la Gallette was painted ?!?

I was in heaven. 😇

I’m baaaaack!!! 😉

After far too long (6 years?) I’m in Paris for a week and enjoying the heck out of this gorgeous city.

The food is insane. The people have been lovely (really!) and the weather has been great.

The Frenchman took the train up to spend a few days with me, and we toured the opulent Palais Garnier and saw the infamous Phantom of the Opera box.

We spent the next day visiting the Paris Liberation Museum - I HIGHLY recommend this place! The similarities of what happened to ignite WWll and what’s going on in the world currently are chilling. The virtual reality tour was so well done - it was fab!

Meeting up with our friend Jennifer from Palermo who lives here was so much fun! Her mom was visiting and we popped the cork on a bottle of Chateneuf de Pape wine on the rooftop of her phenomenal co-working space with 360° views to die for.

for the excess pix, but…it’s Paris! 🤷🏻‍♀️

April 25 is Festa della Liberazione here in Italy. It marks the anniversary of the partisans freeing Italy from N@zi and Fascist rule during WWII.

The day was filled with parades, speeches, and gatherings. The streets were full of families, kids, and folks of all ages celebrating this important holiday, and everywhere you could hear the strains of the famous song, “Ciao Bella” in the air.

But “Ciao Bella”’isn’t just a fun song to sing at parties - it’s the story of a young partisan saying goodbye to his or her family in case they don’t return from the fight.

Take a look at the lyrics and you’ll see how touching it really is.

That’s a wrap! 👍🏼

My first conference for International Living, presenting on stage as their Italy Correspondent about the many reasons to move to Italy has concluded — and it was a big success!

It was definitely nerve wracking 😱 waiting for my turn, but once I got up there, I was actually fine! 😅

Over 200 attendees were there to gather information, data, ideas, and support from the speakers who represented Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Malta, France, and Greece.

I’m extremely happy that’s finished ✅ now and I can relax - it was a lot of work creating the multiple presentations, and I was definitely out of PowerPoint practice!

Luckily I had an extra day afterwards to spend enjoying the Eternal City, Rome. Such a fun, busy, delicious and vibrant place!