Victoria and Kristine Throw a Sleepover Party

Last week, I drove down to Naples, Florida, in order to have a two day sleepover at Victoria's place. The husbands were away, and we planned to spend the time working on this blog and finalizing details of The Duke of Wellington Tour. I brought my laptop with me and we spent a few hours on arrival day working on our blog. And talking. And we had a few drinks. Then, before we knew it, the time had arrived to drive to Mercato, an upscale, outdoor shopping and entertainment venue close to Victoria's condo. We had pre-arranged to meet my daughter, Brooke, at the English Pub, before going on to the movie theatre in order to see The Grand Budapest Hotel.

I had pre-ordered our movie tickets online from The Silverspot Cinema, 

virtually one door away from the Pub. 

The Cinema has a full bar, below, where we purchased cocktails

There's also a restaurant, which we didn't visit.

We found our (oversized leather) seats and settled down to watch the trailers, two of which looked intriguing 

Belle

and

Railway Man

Soon, it was time for the main attraction

The Grand Budapest Hotel was a treat. I'd been looking forward to seeing it for months and, having watched many of the film's trailers, I feared that I may have ruined the experience for myself. But, as Victoria and Brooke agreed afterwards, the film was nothing like we expected. In fact, the trailers lead one to believe that the film will be a rollicking, madcap romp through pre-WWI Europe, but it turned out to be much more. I won't include any spoilers here. I'll just encourage you to see it for yourself.  Click here to watch the trailer for the film.


Then join the staff at Mendl's, Zubrowka's premiere patisserie, as they show you how to make their legendary "courtesan au chocolat", as enjoyed my M. Gustave and all those at The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Afterwards, we went to the Naples Flatbread and Wine Bar for dinner. And wine.

Then Victoria and myself went back to her condo, ostensibly to do some more work on the blog/tour, but in reality we just sat around our computers playing games (Victoria) and watching Coronation Street (me) whilst drinking prosecco. I did work on my needlepoint while watching telly, if that counts at all.

On Friday morning, Victoria and I sat at our laptops and both logged onto Google Maps. We accessed Streetview and put our little yellow men onto St. James's Street and began mapping out our route for the Walking Tour of St. James's we'll be hosting during our stay in London on the Wellington Tour. Of course, each of us quickly became side tracked - we toddled up St. James's Street to St. James's Place and peeked at Spencer House before visiting the Stafford Hotel. We Googled the menues for Brasserie St. Jacques and Franco's in Jermyn Street. Then we strolled (virtually) up to Piccadilly and spent some time investigating The Albany. This, of course, necessitated more Googling, as well as much discussion and the reading of many articles about same on the internet.

At this point, we decided to make Bloody Mary's and re-heat our food from last night for our lunch. However, before we could uncap the vodka, Victoria went into her bedroom only to find a gecko on the wall. I had just had this problem at my own house last week, so I instructed Victoria to get me a broom and together we chased the gecko up walls, behind furniture and across the carpeting. Finally, we trapped it beneath a small waste basket and slid a magazine under it in order to trap the gecko within. Of course the gecko escaped as we lifted the basket, so I pounced, grabbed the gecko up in my fist and ran outside with it.

 Thus having averted a gecko crisis (Victoria would not have been able to sleep knowing there was a gecko in the bedroom with her), we rewarded ourselves with our famous Wake Up Crabby Bloody Marys.

Surprisingly, we spent a productive few hours thereafter working on this blog. In fact, I was working on this very post, whilst Victoria penned Part Two of her post on the Corcoran Art Gallery.

As night fell, we ventured out to the funky Real Macaw restaurant in Naples, where we met up with my son, Matthew.

And then we went on to Harold's Place, a poolside chiki bar where we had a few drinks with my daughter, Brooke 

before having dinner at The French American Bistro, where we feasted on escargot and beef bourguignon.

As you are now aware, writing this blog is hard work - drinking, writing, feasting and gecko wrangling all take their toll, so I decided to finish the weekend with a massage before driving home.

A good time was had by all and we can't wait to do it all again!

Note from Victoria:  It was wonderful, delicious and slosh-ful!  And fruitful, believe it or not. The kind of break I could use every week!!!