Antognano (Tuscany) – The Villa<\/i><\/b> – This amazing place, and the people we met there will be a post on its own. \u00a0There is far to much to share!<\/p>\n The accomodations along the way have been fun so I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,59,57,58,56,61,60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-france","category-italy","category-lyon","category-menton","category-paris","category-turin","category-tuscany"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/89901529-33DA-4D42-A8EB-069D0571FA7F.jpeg",3264,2448,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/89901529-33DA-4D42-A8EB-069D0571FA7F-150x150.jpeg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/89901529-33DA-4D42-A8EB-069D0571FA7F-300x225.jpeg",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/89901529-33DA-4D42-A8EB-069D0571FA7F-768x576.jpeg",640,480,true],"large":["https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/89901529-33DA-4D42-A8EB-069D0571FA7F-1024x768.jpeg",640,480,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/89901529-33DA-4D42-A8EB-069D0571FA7F.jpeg",1536,1152,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/89901529-33DA-4D42-A8EB-069D0571FA7F.jpeg",2048,1536,false],"chromenews-featured":["https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/89901529-33DA-4D42-A8EB-069D0571FA7F.jpeg",1024,768,false],"chromenews-large":["https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/89901529-33DA-4D42-A8EB-069D0571FA7F.jpeg",767,575,false],"chromenews-medium":["https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/89901529-33DA-4D42-A8EB-069D0571FA7F.jpeg",547,410,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"AE","author_link":"https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/?author=1"},"category_info":"France<\/a> Italy<\/a> Lyon<\/a> Menton<\/a> Paris<\/a> Turin<\/a> Tuscany<\/a>","tag_info":"Tuscany","comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1262"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1351,"href":"https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262\/revisions\/1351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/aemacdougall.ca\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/89901529-33DA-4D42-A8EB-069D0571FA7F.jpeg\")
<\/a>Lyon<\/b> – our first AirBNB booking. \u00a0Well this was a weird little place. Again, the area was fine. We discovered a GREAT grocery store nearby (CarrfourExpress, or maybe a UMarket – both are great places to shop). \u00a0This was the only location where we weren\u2019t met by the host\/hostess – but that was ok, she was texting with us as we arrived and gave us the instructions to find the key and get in. \u00a0It was sort of like an \u2018escape room\u2019 in reverse. It was small, ground floor with a back door that went onto a \u2018garden\u2019. The entire place was small and would be considered probably a studio apartment – living room area, kitchen, separate, small, bedroom with no door and bathroom. One of the odd things about this place was the wall covered in moss (fake we hope) and fake plants. \u00a0Perhaps \u2018green walls\u2019 are a good idea in public spaces (and not everyone feels that\u2019s the case) but a fake green wall in a tiny apartment? \u00a0<\/a>No. This wasn\u2019t a good decorating approach nor was it an hygienic element. The next unusual piece was the bathroom walls. Black markers were provided that allowed folks to express themselves. \u00a0This was a MUCH better idea than the green wall. \u00a0Surprisingly, the writing was all neat – much of it artistic even – with lovely messages. \u00a0Kinda cool. The door had three locks on it… but that\u2019s really not too unusual in cities… the back door had only one.. oh well. \u00a0The bed was comfortable enough, but the two smal, square pillows were about equal to a pancake in support and comfort. But, hey… for a couple of nights that\u2019s ok! Unfortunately, the oother negative thing about this place was that it wasn\u2019t as clean as it should be. Primary surfaces (bed, kitchen counter, bathroom counter, toilet and tub) were fine, but other areas… hmm… not so much. \u00a0\ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n<\/a>Menton<\/b> – another AirBNB selection. \u00a0The location couldnt have been much more convenient! \u00a0It was right in the heart of the \u2018downtown\u2019 area with lots of sopping, eating and walking available – and the bonus was that it\u2019s about 300 feet from the beach! \u00a0The lovely hostess met us and ensured we were situated. This apartment was on the second floor and down a hallway. \u00a0It was small – tiny even. \u00a0In the living room a sofa opened into a bed, a closet included additional pillows, ironing board, etc. This space opened into the kitchen, which was adequate for our purposes and contained a tiny folding table. The whole place was clean but there was a smell which, fortunately I smelled only as we were leaving, but G smelled for the entire time. \u00a0Below is a pano picture of the whole apartment (I\u2019m standing in front of the sofa\/bed so you can\u2019t see it). The other interesting thing about this place was the front door that led to the street. \u00a0It looked ancient, but. The lock was a pretty modern, magnetic lock that used a fob as a key! Quite the juxtaposition of old an new!<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Paris – Gardette Park Hotel<\/i><\/b> – This was at some point… something else. \u00a0Perhaps an accomodation of some sort, a flop house, a hostel… but it\u2019s been renovated and is now a chic, boutique hotel (whatever that means). Regardless of what it was, it\u2019s a nice LITTLE hotel now. \u00a0You\u2019ll see some examples in the picture. The \u2018desk and chair\u2019 would fit well in a lower elementary classroom, the very nice and well appointed bathroom was one of the smallest I\u2019ve seen, the elevator was literally a squeeze for me and two suitcases – but, there was a nice breakfast buffet included – and not only was there apple pie in the buffet (indicating that it IS fine to have pie for breakfast), since it was a buffet, a person could have two pieces!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"