I don’t usually get hyped up about birthdays, but it’s not everyday you turn 40. And since I’ll take any excuse to take a foreign trip, I wanted to ring in this Jan. 4 somewhere abroad. Of course, I love Italy to death, am newly fascinated with Greece after stopping there twice with my mom during a 12-day cruise in November… but somehow, my mind kept drifting back to France. Paris is my all-time favorite city, but I felt like I needed to kick off this new year somewhere new. Different, yet romantic and ideally, Mediterranean. While reading one of my favorite twice-weekly e-mails from Adrian Leeds’ Parler Paris newsletter , I saw a listing for “Riviera Experience ,” an assortment of vacation apartments in the charming French Riviera town of Villefranche-sur-Mer, owned and managed by a super-friendly American expat named Shelley Benton. I checked out her Web site, drooled over the incredible apartments – and was immediately hooked!
Those who know me well realize that while I enjoy traveling with family members and friends, I’m equally fond of setting off on my own. And from the start, this 40th birthday getaway felt like one I needed to take alone. I’m thrilled about turning 40 (even though I must admit, it feels strange to type out the number!), and see the start of my fourth decade as a great time for introspection. It’s probably my last best chance to figure out who and what I want to be when I grow up. Do-overs have pretty much run out at this point, so I thought two weeks in a gorgeous place surrounded by folks who’ve long ago mastered that whole “work-life balance” thing was just what the doctor ordered.
While my trip began in Shelley’s to-die-for “Artist’s Atelier ” apartment, right in the center of vieux (old) Villefranche, all roads eventually lead me to Paris, which is where I’ll spend the last four nights of my turning-40 adventure. I’m renting another one of Parler Paris’ stunning apartments in the hopping Marais district, a place I’m sure will inspire and dazzle me just as this city always does.
Perhaps 40 really will be the “new 30” for me – but only if I get to take the hard-knocks wisdom I’ve earned over the last decade with me into my fourth. One thing that’ll certainly go with me into my 40s – a never-ending sense of wanderlust and desire to experience life abroad as often, and as authentically, as possible.