Perfect

Nice was VERY much needed by both of us.

Just to sit on the beach and listen to waves, read a book and do nothing felt pretty damn good. The food was fantastic, our hotel was great and the people were actually very.....well....um...."Nice".(sorry)

We spent our days on the beach or by the pool and the evening walking through the old part of the city which was very cool. Lots of narrow cobbled streets and tons of outdoor restaurants and bars.

We took the train to Monte Carlo for one night. Our primary mission was to gamble at the most famous casino on the planet and pretend to be high rollers for one night. Mission accomplished. Kelli actually won a little bit of cash and I promptly gave it back (and a little more). While I was playing blackjack, a group of men sat down at the table next to mine and after noticing that quite a few of the casino employees were gathering around the table, I glanced over and realized that it was a VERY famous soccer player (Ronaldo) and a few of his teammates from Real Madrid. David Beckham was not one of them. Probably doesn't mean much if you're a non soccer loving American but since the World Cup, I shocked myself by actually being able to recognize him.

We had our French Riviera experience and then moved along the Italian Riviera through Genoa and stopped in Portofino. Absolutely stunning place and some of the most beautiful scenery we have ever seen. We made a brief stop in Pisa on the way to Florence and Tuscany to take a look at the leaning tower. Note to Italian travelers: Do NOT stay in Pisa, drive there like we did or take a bus from Florence. Pisa is kind of like one of those "World's largest thermometer" places along the western roads in the US where you stop, look at it, and move on.

Florence on the other hand has perfect. It is the Italy that you think Italy should be. Perfect food, beautiful buildings, great museums and wonderful people. It is definitely in our top 5 favorite European cities now and we really need to get back as we were only there for about 36 hours. We saw the "David" and paintings and sculptures by people that most people know as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Can you name them?). We saw the graves of Galileo, Michaelangelo and Machiavelli. And Kelli got in some top notch shopping time.

I could write and write about how beautiful Florence and Tuscany were. We thought it was the best of Italy. But then we drove to Como......