An early morning wake-up with Mrs Fendi, on Ponza Island

I realised I haven't done any "An early morning wake-up with..'' posts in a long time. All the previous posts are quite popular even months later (see elder posts: Rachel Zoe, Coco Rocha and Gillian Zinser) so this time I thought I might make you dream a little and I'm taking you some where exotic.

Just one thing before: this gives me the perfect chance to talk about italian summer houses and their decoring. Mmm.. right?! "Italy".. "summer".. and "house".. ! A perfect combo! which easily stimulates one's imagination. But the truth isn't as classy as one would imagine.. that romantical clichè of a stylish and cozy mediterranean villa at the seaside with exotic gardens full of beautiful cured flowers.. is just a clichè. Yes, because a typical & mediocre italian summer residence is everything else, than that. As controversial as it sounds italians don't know anything about the cozy-home-decoring culture. And they don't care much about it either, they like to spend most of their time outside their homes, especially when on vacation. It's all about hanging out at the lidos (the beach) (from 10 o'clock in the morning until 19 in the afternoon, not esagerating!) and all the remaining time they spend it in restaurants, walking on the lungomare or in the city center, meeting friends at the ice-cream bars. Not to forget the exciting life going on on the piazzas. So as you can see there is no time to spend it at home. Italians just don't have that tradition. Even if they have frieds over for dinners they usually hang outside anyway.. So why to bother themselves with decoring a house they only use for sleeping? That's the reality, guys.

This is why whenever I come across an exception in this field I get all excited. Like in this case. When doing my research for the Ponza island I spotted these fabulous pictures taken for Harper's Bazaar. I couldn't resist on not sharing them with you on CN. Take your time and read this interview with her on harpersbazaar.com.

For some of you who don't know (read my previous Ponza posts here) Ponza (circa 10 km²) is the main island in the Gulf of Gaeta, near Rome. Just like the rest of Riviera Ulisse, the coast between Rome and Naples, Ponza is quiet and calm. The exact opposite of the jet-setters' so much loved Capri island in the Amalfitana coast. Ponza is one of my must-destinations this summer, let's hope I finally make it there!

Sanremo.. Sanremo.. ooh how I miss you!

Finally here I am! After an accurate choose & delete & upload process I am (almost) ready to start posting the pictures.

Our vacation was simply perfect! It was all about nice walks in the flower gardens and parks, delicious aperitivis (happy hours) at the seaside, fun cooking and having guests over, night shopping and silly photosessions. It was surely one of the most relaxing ones I've ever had. We also had a blast by doing some tourist-must-do's once in Sanremo like visiting the Casinò and the famous Villas.

Here's the first part of our trip: the arrival, at our house, the old town and the lungomare.

On our way we decided to go by plane. BAD IDEA! We took a flight to Nicewhere we were picked up and taken by car to Sanremo. Nice is only one hour away from Rome but it took much more as our flight was delayed for 10 minutes for 5 times! But it's quite usual for Fiumicino airport. Strangely it's not legal to take pictures of public transport in Italy - not in airport and not in the metrostation - as soon as I took my camera out I was noticed but I managed to stole some shoots anyway ! ;)

Here we are, just arrived in France and on our way to Sanremo, in the traffic casino ofcourse.

We passed all the famous French Riviera and Italian Riviera hot spots like Monte Carlo, Monaco, Ventimiglia.. I took some pictures from the car but they are not that worthy to be posted here.. This road reminded me a lot of my Eurotrip with my family back in 2008 when we drove from Savona to Monte Carlo. I remember promising myself I would return there one day. The very first car-trip I'll do as soon as I'll my own car shall be from the italian coast to the french coast and I'll visit all the small towns one by one, they're all so precious!



Warnings coupon for tourists in Cote d'Azur...



And.. finally at our sweet apartment! It turned out to be a very cozy home and we liked to spent our time there.. Infact one of the things I miss the most is our house.
We took it very easy and so every day we woke up late and had our long breakfast on our wonderful terrace. Usually right after we'd finish clouds would show up and stay stubbornly until 16 o'clock, that's why we didn't get much to the beach.













Often we preferred staying at home for lunch as it was so cozy there! It was almost great as at the restaurant, only more intimate.




And now some shoots of the town! Sanremo is known the most for the flowers. It's very cured and green, there are flowers everywhere you look!





















The wonderful lungomare.. The walks we took there were spectacular! You could see all the town from there. The view was amazing especially in the evenings!



Here there used to be the railway but about 10 years ago it was re-constructed in a cycling road.







Coming up: the happy hour at Victory's and Ferragosto fireworks.

Stay tooned,M.

Huntin' some treasure in Rome!

Friday was probably one of the most exciting days of this summer. It all began a few days ago when I was contacted by one my mother's client who needed help in organizing a surprise for her husband. She invited me for an apéritif at Hotel Eden, a five-star hotel just next to Villa Borghese and five minutes from Via Veneto and Piazza di Spagna. The restaurant and the bar is on the roof, with a breath-taking view on Rome.

Now this is a Royal entrance!

This is only a 1/6 of the whole view!!!

This is how the aperitif looks like. Delicious! For some more click on Le Meridien Hotels's flickr photostreaming here. So, back to the business. Here's what it was all about. Every year she has prepared something special for his birthday and this year wasn't an exception. She had a clever yet a risky idea to make a treasure-hunt in Rome. Everything was already planned , the only problem (due to the language) was to convince the people to play along to the game. That's where I came in. Additionally she asked me to be one of the treasures! So this is how I found myself at four o'clock in the afternoon at the Bar Brasile in piazza Venezia, swiping some champagne and waiting for the birthday-boy to show up with his friends.

L'Altare della Patria - a monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of unified Italy, on piazza Venezia. This was the view from the bar (below) where I had to wait. Not bad, huh?



This picture is taken from Google maps, thank God for Google!



Right after it I ran in Fontana di Trevi to leave a map in one of the oldest pharmacies in Rome called "Antica Farmacia Pesci"(click to see a picture of the interior). (This is the only public pharmacy which has conserved its original characteristics since Ancient Rome. The interiors are basically the same since 1552, the year in which it was established. The walls are probably covered by serpentinite, a type of green marble, and furniture in mahogany, I guess).



Anyways the phramacists were so excited to participate and couldn't wait to hear the four russian men pronounce a non-sense phrase - "I cavalli non sono animali pericolosi" (horses are unharmful animals) their joke of the year! Soon after my boyfriend walked me to my final spot - on Via Delle Quattro Fontane - to keep an eye on the "clue", which was sticked on the pale and to take care the boys head on in the right direction. I hid myself in the bar and Luca took care of everything. Their next stop was at Babington's Tea Room, just next to the Spanish Steps.



My final assignment was to make sure the chauffeur picked up the guys on time for a ride on a vintage car just before the dinner.




It' was fun, especially because I got to share it with my boyfriend. Soon it will be his birthday, I was thinking of doing something similar to him too (he won't read it because it's in english, no worries!). What has been the best surprise someone has ever organized for you on your birthday or for some other special occasion?!

The Hedonist

I know.. the yacht boom is so 1998. But you can't deny this creature (yes, I'm calling it a creature!!) is something extra ordinary! I'm not an expert in the matter of design but it seems to me that the concept of "modern" has strongly changed the past ten years. If in the nineties it was all about the ultra high-tech minimalistic "spacercoket" design, then now it's more about the personality and authenticity. First of all design is much more nature friendly, you can notice it even from the colour palette. The intimidating white and silver grey combinations are kicked off the scene and replaced by the cozy yet strong Earth colours, (you may noticed it also in fashion).

Although the usual touch of these kind of designs is not absent in this particular example (we can't forget- this is still a yacht, one the most loved wealth and luxury symbol amongst the masses so you can't revolution its design that easily), there is something very different, retro and fresh about it. This yacht, differently from the usual giant irons, is almost homie.. makes me wanna crawl on that sofa and read a book (the last picture).. or cook something delicios in that kitchen, shrimp soup for example.. but a glass of white wine during sunset would do, too. Enough of talking... take a look at it yourself.

The name of this yacht is Hedonist, by Art of Kinetik.



"Hedonist embodies the very soul of Art of Kinetik. Combining levels of refinement and comfort with daring looks and matchless performance, this 63 foot yacht epitomizes the genre. It’s solid mahogany hull and Rolls Royce water jets combine to deliver an unusually smooth ride even at the top speed of 40 knots. Naturally, aesthetics is in every detail: no screws are visible at any point and nor is any plastic. We believe Hedonist to be the purest form of art and technology imaginable. " - Art of Kinetik.















"I don't care how rich he is - as long as he has a yacht, his own private railroad car, and his own toothpaste." - Marilyn Monroe.

Well.. I personally wouldn't care about the yacht nor the car.. but if he'd got a yacht like THIS... I'd marry him right away and then, obviously, run away, with the boat ofcourse.
;)