Holiday Rental Essentials - Pepper Mill

I am excited to be heading off to meet MP in Paris tomorrow. It is only a quick trip, as we are primarily going to have a look at the Maison et Objet show, but it will be great to be in that wonderful city again.

The first time I ever went to Paris, nearly all of the main tourist attractions - various art galleries, the Palace of Versailles etc were closed for the week due to strike action. This didn't actually bother me too much as I often prefer to just wander the streets rather than following an itinerary packed with the 'must-see' galleries and attractions. Anyway, I found myself over on the Avenue des Champs Elysees at some point during that week and walked all the way up, checking out the various stores.

I remember thinking it was so bizarre to see car showrooms on the avenue, amongst all of the retail stores, cafes, restaurants and theatres. In particular, I thought the Peugeot store with displays of salt and pepper mills alongside the concept cars was a very unusual sight - something I definitely hadn't come across in New Zealand!

These days, I rarely go back to the Champs Elysees - but, I am a big fan of Peugeot salt and pepper mills.

I am one of those people that looks around in dismay when I realise that a cafe or restaurant doesn't have salt and pepper on each table. I particularly love sitting down to a table and finding the very heavy silver plated pepper mills, such as the one pictured above that they use at The Wolseley.

For me, salt and pepper are everyday essential items and would be right at the top of my grocery list if I was doing the first shop of the week at a rented property. I usually try and find some sea salt flakes and then some peppercorns that come in a container with a built in grinder. Depending on how big the local stores are though, it is not always easy to find these items. You might instead be looking at table salt and ground black pepper. I can cope with the salt, but have no interest in that powdery form of pepper - so, this week I am recommending that pepper mills be considered to be a holiday rental essential.

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Italian Riviera - Part 2

After exploring the Cinque Terre we drove up north for an hour to a place called Recco which we used as a base to explore a few other villages in the surrounding area. We stayed at a great agriturismo called Villa Carmelina which I chose because the food had glowing reviews and also because it had a pool. The food was so delicious and each night we would have one or two appetisers, a pasta, a main and then dessert. The majority of the food was all from the farm. Dinner including wine was 23 euros per adult and it was a bonus that the girls ate for free!

From Recco we drove half an hour to Santa Margherita Ligure where we caught the ferry to Portofino:

From Portofino we jumped straight onto a bus to take us to Paraggi Beach. This beach is taken up mostly by private beach clubs where you hire sun loungers and umbrellas. I was quite surprised at how expensive it was. We paid 60 euros for two sun loungers and an umbrella. The club down the road was charging 100 euros! It was money well spent though as we had a really nice relaxing day at the beach swimming in beautiful emerald coloured water.

Walk the plank!

The view along the beach:

Cute beach cabins:

Another day we made it to Camogli which was pretty, but crowded and very pebbly which might have been hard to sit on all day!

On our last day we drove half an hour to Sestri Levante where we spent the day at the Bay of Silence. This was a beautiful little cove with a sandy beach and calm clear water which the girls loved swimming in.

I had the perfect lunch at a beachside restaurant right called Cutter Cacca, a lovely end to a great holiday!

MP

Holiday Rental Essentials - Coat Hooks

It's a bit of a strange holiday rental essential this week. The new Ikea catalog came out yesterday and there were quite a few things I liked, one of which was these:

My entrance currently looks like this and we're not even in winter yet! Can you imagine the mess when there are thick winter coats and boots all over the floor?!

At our friend's rental property in Quillan she just had about 6 hooks along the wall at the bottom of the stairs which was perfect for hanging up jackets and bags.

In a beach house I love the idea of something like this with the storage along the top and bottom as well (although not so keen on the colours).

I think in reality it would look more like this though which is still cute and better than what I currently have!

MP

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Bars as Home Inspiration

If anyone else is also a fan of How I Met Your Mother, you will probably remember this scene:

Although I will probably never open a bar, that doesn't mean that I don't have a few ideas stored away, just in case.

It has become increasingly popular to draw inspiration from industrial kitchens for home kitchens and I think you could also get some amazing ideas from bars and restaurant interiors.

I came across a post on Gracias Madre restaurant in West Hollywood on decor8 a couple of weeks ago. I have mentioned my love for tiles before, and this restaurant fulfils all my tile fantasies with their bar (pictured above).

We have featured the bar (pictured above) at the Watsons Bay Beach Club before, but again, there is so much that I like about this bar. I would love to bring some of that colour into a beach house design.

What are your favourite bars? Have you ever thought about incorporating elements of their design into your home?

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Focaccia

The thing about Italy is the food is amazing! Each area has their own specialties and the Ligurian cuisine highlights were lots of fresh seafood, pesto (apparently invented in Genova to stop scurvy in sailors) and focaccia. 

Focaccia is EVERYWHERE here. People will stop at the the many stores selling it and load up with their parcels to take with them to the beach. There are quite a few different toppings but my favourite was definitely just the plain one topped with olive oil and salt and also one topped with onions. My daughter's favourite was one smeared with juicy tomato paste, dollops of pesto and grilled cheese.

I must say I'm not normally a fan of focaccia as I find it a bit too thick and doughy but the Focaccia Genovese is quite thin and crispy. I think we ate it nearly every day, sometimes two times a day!

On the second part of our trip we were in Recco which is famous for it's Focaccia di Recco. 

The best place to get this is at Focaccia in Piazzetta where this is pretty much the only thing they make. We went there twice during our stay. The first time we took it back to the hotel to eat it and I wasn't too impressed as the bread part had gone a bit soggy but the second time we had to wait for it to come out of the oven and ate it straight away, much better! It's basically a layer of Stracchino cheese baked between a few pieces of ultra thin focaccia. 

Happy Friday! Hope you all have a good weekend.

MP

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Holiday Rental Essentials - Tissues

When we did a bit of research on what people like to find at holiday rentals, we came across a few items that we personally wouldn't consider essentials, but for other people they are. This includes things such as a box of tissues, egg cups, nut crackers, a dog bed and a bike pump.

I know that when MP's mother-in-law came to stay with her once she asked if they had any grapefruit spoons. I didn't even know such a thing existed! For people that eat grapefruit every morning though, they might consider this to be an essential.

The rule with some of the items above I would say is to include them if you happen to have spare ones at home (we will do a separate post about not using your rental as a dumping ground though!). You also should take note and act on feedback that you receive from guests. Apparently two of the most requested items for rentals in the US are a waffle maker and a blender.

I think that a box of tissues could be a nice item to include if you are wanting to replicate what people might expect to find in a hotel. What are your thoughts on some of these other items? Let us know what you consider to be a holiday rental essential. We are getting towards the end of this series of posts and don't want to miss anything out!

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Italian Riviera - Part 1

We're just back from our holiday to the Cinque Terre so I thought I'd share a few things while it's still fresh in my mind. Cinque Terre is about a 5 hour drive from where we live in Switzerland and on the way down we stopped at the Serravalle Designer Outlet. My husband's colleague had warned us that we would spend the whole day there and we were there 5 hours and that wasn't even really doing proper shopping ... just wandering in and out of shops whilst trying to keep the children under control! There are a whole load of designer brands here. I thought the shops that had the best offerings were Prada and Burberry. There were discounts of up to 50% off and you could get a pair of sunglasses for around 100 euros. If I had more time I would have liked to have tried on a few things at Missoni. A cardigan was around 150 euros and dresses around 200. There are so many shops here including Petit Bateau and Frette, it is definitely worth a stop.

We then headed for Monterosso Al Mare which is the first Cinque Terre town that you hit as you're driving down. The road down is crazily steep and narrow! The owner of the hotel later told us that they recommend the best way to arrive is by train. We stayed at a really nice hotel called A Ca Du Gigante. The location of this hotel is amazing, right by the beach and restaurants so it was great to be able to just leave our car for a few days and get around by walking and the train.

Monterosso is the only Cinque Terre town that has a sandy beach which is why I chose there as thought it would be the most practical with the girls. Most of it was covered in sun loungers which you had to pay for with very small patches of public beach.

It's a great little seaside town with lots of restaurants to choose from and a little playground running alongside the beach. Our favourite place to eat was at Cantina di Miky. It was right on the waterfront serving up the most delicious food. Fritto Misto, a lemon, vodka and prosecco dessert drink and stuffed anchovies. 

Monterosso is also a great base to explore the rest of the towns. We took the train one day to Riomaggiore which was a quaint little town.

The trains were really busy and the little villages are heaving with people. It is Italy in August I guess! The area was full of Americans and then later we found out that a lot of people from Milan flock down for their summer holidays as well as it's only a few hours drive away. My tip for the train is to allow time to buy your tickets. We spent nearly half an hour waiting to buy tickets.

After a busy day exploring Riomaggiore we were happy to just spend the rest of the time relaxing at the beach and eating lots of gelato! 

Stay tuned for the next part of our trip! 

MP