The Euro Summer Files: 3 Weeks, 8 Destinations & Everything I’d Book Again

Travel

Sep 24

Nice to Positano to Paris: the whole three-week Euro summer recap - beach clubs, boat days, honest tips, and the travel hack that planned my Paris days.

SORRY this is long overdue. After three weeks, eight destinations, approximately one million steps, a truly unreasonable number of spritzes, and enough photos to fill my phone storage, I am finally back in San Diego - and this is the full recap.

The trip in one line: a wedding in Tuscany, beach clubs in Mykonos and St. Tropez, glamorous nights in Monaco, boats in Capri, my favorite place on the planet, and a few days in Paris before flying home. Sit back, relax, and save this one for your next trip.

The itinerary

Nice → St. Tropez → Monaco → Tuscany → Mykonos → Capri → Positano → Paris. And yes, we really did all of that in three weeks. Would I recommend checked bags already pushing 50 lbs? Absolutely not. Would I do it again tomorrow? Also yes.

Nice: the soft launch into vacation mode

We started in Nice, the perfect introduction to the French Riviera. The beaches are rocky - emphasis on ROCKY - so grab a lounger and umbrella at Ruhl Plage and settle in. Our ideal beach order became:

spritz → watermelon → swim → salad → repeat.

Very strenuous. One of my favorite lunch spots was Le Plongeoir, literally perched over the Mediterranean on a giant rock. Blue water, the beach, that perfect Riviera sunshine - we ordered the watermelon drinks, iced coffees, and so many good apps to share (my favorite way to eat on vacation). Everything felt so quintessentially summer in the South of France.

St. Tropez: beach clubs, dancing & people watching

We stayed in Ramatuelle, which honestly looked so much like California wine country that I kept forgetting where we were - close to all the beach clubs, about 20 minutes into the harbor and main town.

We did Gigi, Nikki Beach, and Shellona - where we waited approximately 90 minutes to see Solomon and somehow made it all the way to the front of the DJ booth. We bought a few drinks in GA, met some friends, and ended up invited into VIP. Euro Summer math.

For dinner, Noto was such a highlight we went twice. The lemon ravioli with the white sauce was that good, and the people watching along the harbor by the yachts was even better - live music and singers both evenings. The markets were also a favorite: jewelry, linen clothes, bags, fresh fruit, olives, and lots of little things I absolutely did not need but wanted as souvenirs. And we became obsessed with eating tomatoes with balsamic. Somehow everything tastes better in France.

Monaco: lotta glam, little chaotic

We stayed at the Fairmont Grand Hotel Monte Carlo, which puts you right in the middle of everything. Monaco was easily my best shopping destination, and we did lunch at AMU and La Note Bleue on the beach. Buddha-Bar was such a vibe - we barely left the Fairmont the whole time, because everything we wanted was right there. We didn't even realize until later that AMU, Buddha-Bar, and Nikki Beach for pool drinks were all part of our hotel. Honestly, we accidentally picked the perfect place to stay.

Then came the Monte Carlo Casino at night. Important PSA: bring your passport. And you can't just take photos everywhere inside.

The Monaco transfer drama. No Euro summer is complete without a little transportation drama. We had Naveco, a transfer company, booked for Monaco to St. Tropez - and somehow I booked our pickup for 2:00 AM instead of 14:00. By the time we realized my very obvious mistake, Naveco couldn't provide the van, so Joslin came in clutch and rented a car (she requested stick shift, of course) and drove us herself. We got our money back, we had snacks for the road, and honestly? Getting lost on the hairpin turns circling Monaco made for a pretty good travel story.

Tuscany: slow mornings & late nights

Then the wedding at Castiglion del Bosco, a Rosewood hotel. The mornings were almost comically peaceful - hundreds of deer wandering the property, cappuccinos every day, the infinity pool, and the kind of Tuscan landscape that makes you want to dramatically stare into the distance.

And then we partied until 3AM on the dance floor the night before and the night of the wedding. Which honestly feels like the perfect balance.

Mykonos: one more drink era

Pure chaos in the best possible way. Beach clubs. Dancing on tables. Running into the ocean in our outfits. Walking the harbor with a gyro. Little Venice. Evil eye shopping. Greek salads and tzatziki every single day. I also became obsessed with the Greek grocery stores - everything felt so inexpensive compared to home, and we loved picking up food from the markets.

180° Sunset Bar was one of those nights straight out of a movie. We sat on the ground eating dinner as the sun went down, and somehow our quiet sunset dinner slowly turned into a full-blown club. The funniest part was "zooming out" on the way to the bathroom and realizing we were literally in the middle of a party at the tip of a cliff overlooking all of Mykonos. One of those wait, where are we right now?! moments.

Another favorite: Negretta, a tiny dive bar with the ocean crashing right alongside where we sat. Spritzes and espresso martinis to-go. And obviously, Scorpios Sunday deserves its own award - stay for sunset and be prepared to dance. The most spontaneous night was Alemagou Monday: no over-planned itinerary, just good music, friends, drinks, and a "we're here, so let's make the most of it" mentality. Not the plan - and one of the memories I talk about the most.

Capri: boat day in heaven

We took the ferry from Naples and stayed at Hotel Serene - a positive experience with a great breakfast included, though we did have an unfortunate mold situation in our bathroom, so I'm giving it an honest review rather than pretending everything was perfect.

CAPRI TIP: Pay the €20 per bag for the hotel porters at the port. It is SO worth it. Otherwise you're hauling bags up the funicular after a full travel day.

Capri has incredible designer shopping, and a gelato spot near our hotel where you can smell the warm cones from the street. But my biggest recommendation? Hire a captain for a boat day. One of the splurges of the trip and completely worth it. We also had an expensive lunch at Il Riccio - gorgeous, but heavily seafood-focused, so not really worth it for me as a vegetarian. The dessert room, though, is absolutely wild. For a more casual meal, Casa Palomino had an amazing lemon ravioli.

I also highly recommend dinner at Da Paolino under the lemon trees, and the Monte Solaro chairlift in Anacapri for the panoramic views. I have done both, and both belong on my Capri list.

Positano: my favorite place on the planet

I don't think I can overstate this one. Positano is iconic - a vertical village spilling down to the sea. Chic hotels, colorful umbrellas, romantic winding staircases that all lead up or down the cliff. Expect stairs, and expect to fall in love with them and the porters who carry your bags up and down said stairs. (Again: pay the porters. Cars can't drive right up to most places.)

My recommendations:

Getting there: ferry from Capri, about an hour. We stayed at Kings View Airbnb, right above Café Positano, with a balcony overlooking everything - the views are exactly what you imagine.

Dinner: Lo Guarracino, cliffside, with classic Positano pastas and vegetarian options.

Dinner: Miskaki Sushi, for when you're over pasta (just for a sec) - an entire vegetarian menu with gyoza, crispy rice, and specialty rolls.

After dinner: Don't Worry Bar, a speakeasy hidden inside Le Sirenuse, the most famous hotel in town.

More dinner: Aldo's at Le Sirenuse - lots of fish, plus a few vegetarian pastas and apps.

Go out: Music On The Rocks, Positano's legendary cliffside nightclub.

Beach day: Arienzo Beach Club, my favorite beach club of the entire trip. Book online ahead of time, and no need to splurge on the row closest to the water. We had lunch, a bottle of champagne per pair, float tubes, limoncello, and spent the day swimming and collecting beach glass.

You can walk or take a water taxi almost everywhere, and every single corner looks like it was designed to be a screensaver.

Paris: the grand finale

We saved Paris for last, and I think that was the perfect way to finish. I walked. I ate. I shopped. I drank wine. I wandered. Then the Moulin Rouge - somehow my most underrated stop of the entire trip. THE SHOW WAS SO MUCH FUN, genuinely one of the best shows I've ever seen. We grabbed a crepe afterward and ended the night watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle at midnight.

Then it was Paris → London Heathrow → San Diego. And just like that... back to reality.

Places we researched but didn't make it to

We had a much longer ideas list than the trip had days. I didn't personally make it to any of these, so this is not a firsthand recommendation - just the short list I would keep for next time:

• Èze: the hilltop village between Nice and Monaco, especially the old village lanes and the panoramic garden.

• Ravello: a quieter Amalfi Coast detour for the gardens and views at Villa Rufolo or Villa Cimbrone.

• Cine Manto in Mykonos: an open-air cinema and garden restaurant near the windmills for a calmer night between beach-club days.

The travel hack I can't gatekeep

For Paris, I used ChatGPT to build a self-guided walking tour and tell me which Metro lines to take - but I made it Real Housewives of Paris. My prompt, for your copy-paste pleasure:

"I'm visiting Paris and want you to create a self-guided walking tour through the places I'm visiting. Give me the most interesting, surprising and slightly gossipy fun facts about each place, tell me what to look for while I'm there, and give me the easiest Metro route between stops. Write it like I'm on a Real Housewives girls' trip: glamorous, entertaining, a little dramatic, but still historically accurate."

Honestly? 10/10 travel hack.

Shop my trip (something new)

If you've ever asked me, "Wait, where did you stay in Capri?" or "What was that restaurant in Positano?" - this one's for you. I'm officially beta testing Globe Thrivers, a new app that's basically ShopMy, but for travel. I'm adding the hotels, restaurants, beach clubs, tours, and other places I've personally visited and loved, so you can browse my actual recommendations and use my itineraries to plan your own trip. Even better: you can book directly through my Globe Thrivers links, turning travel inspo into a real itinerary without hunting down every reservation yourself.

xoxo, Maya