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!
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. 
