A Week in Provence
We spent a relaxing week in Provence, from our home base in the hilltop town of Bonnieux.
Author: Valerie Antkowiak
Tasting Wine and Truffles in Alba, Italy
From Bologna, we traveled to the northwest of Italy, to Piedmont. On our last trip to Italy in 2018, our friends Pete and Kari joined us in Siena, then they traveled up to Piedmont...
Bologna: Europe’s Oldest College Town
I’ve always enjoyed visiting college towns – from Ann Arbor to Madison, to Cambridge, both Massachusetts and the UK. In 2021 we visited Coimbra, the home of Europe’s second oldest university, so this time,...
Two Weeks in Siena
We traveled to Italy and Provence in the fall of 2022 and it was great to get back to more normal traveling – no pandemic restrictions, no masks required – but the crowds were...
Peloton Guide Review: Best Features, Benefits and Tips
I’ve been a Peloton member since March 2021. I didn’t buy my Bike Plus during the original peloton pandemic frenzy in 2020, but I ordered it during our second California COVID shut down in...
CES 2023: Smart Home Insights
It’s been a few weeks since our annual trip to Las Vegas for CES 2023 and we’ve had some time to reflect on our experience. It’s still the best place for us to see...
CES 2023: Our Top 20 Home Tech Products
This year’s CES had more than 3200 exhibitors and 115,000 attendees, far from the record but still nearly three times as many people as last year. Parties and shaking hands were back. The last...
2022 Smart Home Holiday Gift Guide
When we first started doing our smart home holiday gift guide in 2014, the shopping season started after Thanksgiving, with Black Friday. This year, it feels like it started before Halloween, and we’re late...
Coimbra and Fatima
The next day, we said goodbye to Olga and Fernando and headed south to Coimbra, just a short ride on the fast train from Porto. Coimbra appealed to me for a couple of reasons....
Porto and the Douro Valley
After our long week cycling in Alentejo, our taxi came to the farmhouse to take us to the train for the next leg of our trip, up to Porto, Portugal’s second city and the...