Eze, France

Eze is a magnificent medieval village at the top of a high hill or low mountain on the French Riviera, very close to Nice. The streets are so narrow that automobile traffic is impossible, and the entire village is accessible to pedestrians only. Lots of funky art shops and gorgeous outdoor cafés and, at the very top — I have no idea why — there's a large and lovely cactus garden with incredible views out across the Mediterranean.

My first visit was in 1985, and I absolutely loved the place. I brought Becca there in 2001, but we arrived too late in the day to find a hotel room in the village itself. We found a pension a kilometer or two inland, checked into a spacious room, then went back and roamed around Eze for hours. Later, back at the pension, we settled ourselves in for the night — and were attacked in our room by what had to have been at least 50 billion hungry mosquitoes. We closed the windows and shutters and stuffed the crack beneath the door with towels and swatted thousands of the little bastards to death, but their cousins somehow kept getting inside anyway and sleep was clearly going to be impossible. Finally, around midnight or so, we gave up, packed up, and drove away. We wound up in a parking lot, where we caught a couple of hours of shuteye in the car, an experience neither one of us is eager to repeat.

Eze is still an amazingly beautiful place, though. You just have to watch out for the skeeters.

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