Italy & Monaco

I have some beautiful pictures for you today!  More from my south of France vacation.  I am breaking this up into quite a few posts because frankly, it was an awesome vacation and I love sharing these beautiful places.  And travel is a big part of my life, so it kinda fits!  If you want to catch up, you can see our trip to Cannes and then Day Two in Nice.  

On this particular day I woke up in Mougins, France, had a little snack stop in Monaco and ate lunch in Italy.  Monaco was be-U-tiful!  Little out of my budget, but ya know, nice to look.  

 Wouldn't this be cool for a balcony?  I would love to have breakfast sitting overlooking the Mediterranean. ahhhh... one can dream!

 Monaco has a very interesting history.  It has stayed ruled by the same family, the Grimadlis, since the 1200's, longer than any other.  The current prince, Prince Albert (his mother was Grace Kelly) is a descendant.  Grace Kelly was the American actress that married Prince Rainier.  I won't bore you, but very interesting history here!
 One of the famous Casinos I didn't gamble at.  I only gamble with other people's money.  And since I don't have a lot of people just handing me money to gamble, I don't do it a lot.

 That's my yacht right there.  The big one.  Ya, this little blog is doing pretty good for itself.  :)  Who knew?

 Can you see the stores?  Hermes, Dior, Valentino.... just to name a few.

Our view leaving Monaco.  So beautiful!

Then we stopped in Italy.  My dad is 50% Italian which makes him pretty much an expert on everything Italian.  He felt particularly attached to his 'peeps' and wanted to look up his last name, Durso, a popular Italian name mainly in the south.  So we had fun teasing him about his 'peeps' and if he saw any of his cousins.  Everything was either 'see what they're doing? Stupid Italians.'  Or 'see what they're doing?  Italians are awesome!'

And of course we had to have Italian pizza while in Italy.  Eli particularly liked the soda.  Which he doesn't usually get, but you know, Grammy and Papi around, times are special!  He kept saying 'aaahhhh' after each sip, it was so cute. 

 My dad and Tae, skipping more rocks on the Mediterranean.  These two are best buds.

 Welcome to Italy, Italian food, and old men playing bocce ball.  Does it get any better?

Lunch with my boys!

It was on the Italian Riviera where I took this rather difficult to pose picture. Good bye 2011, welcome 2012!!

So far so good, can't wait to see what she brings us!

Oh, and if you're wondering where my husband is in all of this, well, he had to leave early.  Stinkin' basketball practice or whatever.  Such a bummer to not have him there!