We have traveled many times to Italy and seen many beautiful cities, but Castiglione del Lago really stands out as a magical, almost fairy tale like in its vibe, with a real castle to boot! The first thing you notice is the majestic castle that is in the center of this little town overlooking a beautiful lake and situated outside of Perugia, Italy. Just getting the pronunciation correct in saying Castiglione del Lago gives you the sense you are really in the heart of Italy. This city is in the region of Umbria, known for some of the best Italian wines. 
Castiglione del Lago immediately felt like home to us when we met third generation native, Mario Barbini who welcomed us with open arms into his beautifully restored 500 year old Palazzo Barbini apartments. Our two bedroom apartment was spacious, charming and had a beautiful view of the city and a private terrace. It also had the cutest kitchen that I was dying to cook in, but we were kept so busy with amazing dinners and lunches that I simply didn’t have time! Ronn went to Castiglione del Lago to prepare the songs he would be doing for his first ever Italian music tour set for summer 2019. The music director lives in Castiglione del Lago and so we needed to be near his studio to go over all the music for the tour production, which required daily recordings and computer insertions for the video editor to coordinate and for the band to prepare to rehearse later next month with Ronn.
However, it didn’t feel like work at all for Ronn because we were having such a great time in between his creative process. The two weeks spent in Castiglione del Lago flew by and will forever be ingrained in our minds as one of the most special and unique places we have visited. We also took some time to visit another charming city nearby called, Assisi before checking out the seaside of Abruzzo. Ronn made some rare personal appearances in these areas to meet with as many fans as possible and to check out possible venues for the tour. It’s hard to believe we have now been in Europe for two months as this time has flown by so fast, and we are now relaxing in our beautiful Rome Loft situated in the center of Rome. We can’t recommend this place enough for anyone traveling to see the sights of Rome, as its a perfect location to walk just about everywhere. We will now head to Belgium for a few appearances and preparation with Ronn’s “Bad and Beautiful” band for the next couple weeks before heading back to Italy for band rehearsals and more surprises to share later!
We go every year to the high sierra mountains with the kids. The tiny cabin that has been in Ronn’s family for 100 years is very special to him and the girls, so we are finally getting the ball rolling to fix the place up.
Apparently, the forest service has a lot of required permits for renovating something that old because it is nestled in the heart of the forest, so the process will be long and tedious one. Nevertheless, we are expanding it and turning it into our dream cabin for future vacations with friends and family. I’m sorry I seem to be having tech problems with my site. I have alerted my webmaster and it is fixed now. I so apologize to those of you who were trying to order autographed copies of my book and thanks to those of you who alerted me to the problem. But, I had no Internet at the cabin except for limited cell usage. Technology is great when it works, but it’s not always perfect huh? Anyway, it’s good to be home in my own bed, yes I am sooo spoiled, hahaha. I felt like I was roughing it for two weeks in the woods! Here is the link to order my book on Barnes and Noble 
The past couple of days were pretty rough, both Ronn and I were only averaging about 6 hours of sleep with the aid of a sleeping pill to get back into our time zone. I spent most of the day catching up on emails, phone calls, bills and mail urrrghhh! So I became a little cranky by the end of the day. I happy to say I feel more like myself today and will do some more catching up, but I wanted to post some of the photos from our trip here and on our sites
. So check them out
. Ronn shot so many amazing shots, especially in Sanremo.
My birthday is on Thursday and I just want a quiet dinner this year, no big party as I don’t have the energy for it. Tomorrow Ronn and the kids are cooking me dinner and that’s the best birthday present spending it with them.
Finally we are back online in the London airport heading home today. It was hard to distinguish the Internet in France since both Ronn and I don’t read French or speak it. We have decided we want to learn and have already started with a few basics. Our time last night in Paris was magical. We walked for hours taking in the Louve, corner cafes, shopping and a romantic dinner before saying goodbye to our now favorite city together. Everywhere we went, people recognized Ronn and asked for pics and autographs. Even the female taxi driver in little town of Onzain, which was near Lorie Valley asked for his autograph. The women at the counter where we exchanged dollars for Euros did also. Seems I can’t go anywhere with him without this happening. The security guys in the Louve asked for a photo with him. The chef at Loire Valley who prepared the best french meal we have ever experienced asked for an autograph for his mother! Will post pics from this dinner later, it was a work of art! The show is very well the most watched in the world, that’s for sure. At one point we had people from Italy, France, Morocco and Zanzabare asking for autographs and pics! We both have very much enjoyed this vacation and consider it one of our best. But, we are missing home now and can’t wait to see Nayo, Romeo and the girls. I’m glad you guys got to share some of our trip from our blogs here. Will post more pics and we are working on our video from the whole trip on our plane ride back.
After having some amazing tastings in the chateaus of LaGrange, Margaux and Lynch Bages in the Medoc region of Bordeaux and then experiencing some chateaus of the St. Emilion region, home of Petrus. Ronn was fascinated with the wine education he had and found we both loved the older wines from the Medoc, but still appreciated the Merlot blends of St. Emilion just as much. We bought a few bottles to keep for the future, as well as a few to drink now. 2005 was a great year for all of Bordeaux and we fell in love with LaGrange and savored a bottle in our room while catching up on emails in our lovely room we had in this 18th century chateau. So I can safely say, Ronn is very relaxed now and loving France. We both want to learn French and can’t wait to go to Loire Valley, which is so beautiful today. We will stay in another 18th century chateau and visit one more vineyard today there before returning on Friday for our final day in Paris. Then it’s back home on Saturday. So far this has been an amazing trip. We have shot lots of video and we are organizing the clips together for an edited DVD to share soon. Will try to take more pics to post later.
After a grueling week of press and gala functions, Ronn was ready for a much needed vacation. The last press interview was in Amsterdam. We had a wonderful time in Amsterdam and visited with a long time friend of Ronn’s, Amanda. Amanda and some of her friends took us to dinner and we got to experience herring, which is very popular. A stop in the red light district was funny when Ronn would walk by windows of girls recognizing him. I checked out the coffee shops and we both admired the beauty of this amazing city. Ronn and I both would love to see Player kick off a European tour in Amsterdam. Paris has always been one of my favorite cities. It had a been a while since I’d been there, over 10 years to be exact, so I figured what better place to visit with Ronn, especially since he informed me that he had only been there twice and didn’t really remember much about it.They say, you should only go to Paris with someone you love, so it was great to share walking the stairs of the Eiffel tower and shopping on the Champs’ Elysee’. We both love red wines and since I’d been to Bordeaux before and found the train ride from Paris to Bordeaux to be quite pleasant; I suggested this as a good alternative the tremendous amount of driving Ronn does daily. He was so relaxed, he slept the entire three hour train ride! We are staying in a private 1780 Chateau that is ironically owned by a Dutch family. It is so relaxing, beautiful and peaceful and we were greeted with a wonderful bottle of wine and cheese to kick start our day tomorrow of wine tastings in some of the best regions. 
Congratulations to “The Bold and The Beautiful” for their 4th win of the Golden Nymph award last night. It was a lovely evening spent in Monte Carlo with Prince Albert of Monaco. We had dinner afterwards with Katherine Kelly Lang, Dan McVicar, Ashley Jones and Brad and Colleen Bell. Designer of the award show Bain Du Nuit offered me this gorgeous yellow dress to wear for the red carpet that I could not resist! Prince Albert is so down to earth and gracious, we gave him a can of “Devin’s Kickass Cajun Seasoning” and he loved the name, kept saying, “I can’t wait to try some kickass!” It was very cute.
Needless to say, we got absolutely no sleep last night because of a 4am drive to the Nice airport for our flight to Amsterdam. I’ve never been so tired in my life! I swear I don’t know how Ronn does it as he has press all day today and it started at the Amsterdam airport upon arrival. God I do not want to see those pics of me! I just woke up from sleeping all morning, while poor Ronn is yet again working. Yesterday, before the awards we went to Sanremo for a quick photo shoot with Ronn. It was so touching to see how much the Italians love Ronn. From babies to elderly people, the love they give him is priceless. We took photos of Ronn taking photos of them and had a delicious Italian lunch before driving back to Monaco for the awards. Truly amazing memories of Monaco, Prince Albert, Sanremo and all the love from the fans. I even had a few asking for my autograph, which was a total surprise to me! Will post more pics that we’ve taken as soon as Ronn and I have time to look at them in our camera.
Ronn and I made it to Monaco and the weather is absolutely gorgeous. Our flight was smooth and pleasant, but we missed our connecting flight to Nice and had to take a later one, which made our arrival at about 1am Sunday morning. By the time we went to bed it was 3am. We had been up a total of about 32 hours by then and was sooo tired. This was my second visit to Monte Carlo/Monaco and Ronn’s third. My last visit was about 10 years ago and his was about 4. Monday late morning Ronn joined Ashley Jones, Doug Davidson and Michelle Stafford for a private luncheon with contest winners from all over Europe. It was at the beautiful Monte Carlo Bay hotel. After lunch, Ronn and I were so tired, we took a nap and didn’t wake up until later in the evening. We went to dinner and back to sleep. Then Ronn discovered he had blown out the charger to our video camera by using the wrong converter, so not like him. Made me feel better for forgetting my phone, but nevertheless, we need a new charger to continue taking video of our trip. Today Ronn is busy all day with Press, so I went to the mall to get a new one, but they didn’t have one for this camera, so I’m not sure what we will do now? Tonight we are having cocktails at the Prime Minister’s house and tomorrow night we meet Prince Albert at the palace. Thursday we go to Sanremo for a photo shoot with Ronn and then we have the award show in the evening. I will post again later and hopefully have some better news about our camera situation.