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Turquoise Sea by Leah Marie Brown Imagine if you will, a footpath carved into the side of a granite cliff overlooking a turquoise sea.  Now, situate this idyllic thoroughfare on the Italian Coast.  Picture yourself standing on the path.  Do you feel the sea breezes blowing seductively on your skin?  Can you hear the surf gently lapping the rocky shore far below?  If you knew such a trail existed, wouldn't you want to traverse it? When I read about a trail in Italy that stretches between the clifftop villages of  Riomaggiore and Manarola, I felt my pulse quicken, my imagination take flight.  The guidebook said the Italians have been calling the trail Via dell'Amore (Lovers Lane) since the 1940s.  Sigh. I imagined it to be a place for romance and daydreams.  I saw myself strolling down that magical path, pausing to admire the Mediterranean sea, a patchwork of cerulean and turquoise spread out...

I found myself in the heart of Florence, walking down an ancient, dimly lit pedestrian street just moments before the magical gloaming, when the sinking sun would bathe the city in liquidy shades of gold, bronze and copper.  (Apropos colors, when one remembers that Florence was once the financial center of Europe.) Florence is a magical city in any light, but during the gloaming it appears more beautiful and more mysterious.  Shadows deepen, elongate, shading the city in slightly sinister tones.  The air appears as gauzy as a shroud.  Streetlights flicker to life, creating otherworldly halos around the heads of the statues standing sentry in the piazzas. It takes little effort to imagine a Medici woman, ensconced in a voluminous cloak, her face partially concealed by her hood, slipping down an alley to meet an old crone hawking deadly nightshade.  What secrets do the shadows hold?  What demons does the light keep at bay? ...

My first two years of high school were as turbulent as a washing machine on spin cycle.  Family dysfunction, the death of my grandfather, and a surge of hormones sent me spiraling out of control.  I skipped out of school, ran with a tough crowd, got into mischief, and challenged anyone in authority. In my junior year, I took a creative writing class.  Mr. Schriener, my teacher, urged me to release my teenage angst through blank verse poetry.  Finding it terribly cathartic, I filled spiral notebooks with poems about the girl I had been and the woman I hoped to become.  I wrote about the pressing issues in my tiny world:  The vapidity of the popular clique, my first love, my unrequited desire for expensive designer jeans, my stepfather's frequent forays into adultery, battles with my mother, the uncertainty of my future. Mr. Schriener read some of my poems and suggested I submit them to magazines.  With a belly full of nerves and doubt, I sent...

Portofino By Leah Marie Brown   Portofino has long been the vacation destination for the rich and famous.   Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Sophia Lauren forsook the artifice of Tinsel Town for the natural beauty of Portofino, a picturesque Italian fishing.    When Stephanie and I began planning our grande aventure  from Provence to Tuscany, I insisted a day in Portofino be added to our itinerary.  For me, it wasn't about Grace or Humphrey.  It wasn't about Sophia or Elizabeth.  It was about Rex.   Rex Harrison.  The legendary British actor who starred in one of the most romantic movies ever filmed.  The Ghost and Mrs. Muir .  (Yes, I just sighed.)  I was a child when I first discovered the cinematic greatness of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir , a romantic fantasy about a young widow who falls in love with the ghost of a swashbuckling sea captain.  Rex Harriso...

Serendipitious Traveler, Day 11 ~ Cannes The Hotel Martinez in Cannes, France Photo by Leah Marie Brown With Stephanie visiting childhood friends, I suddenly found myself alone in Cannes, Mistress of My Own Fate.  I opted to book a table at Z Plage, the beach side restaurant owned and operated by the Hotel Martinez.  The Martinez is the super swank hotel movie stars stay at while visiting Cannes.  I wanted to dine al fresco , to sit and gaze at the French Riviera, to sip champagne.  I wanted to create my Cannes moment. Sitting at the swanky beach side restaurant, I pulled out my journalist's notebook.  I decided to do a writing exercise.  I call it Tapping Into My Inner-Ellen Degeneres...that free flowing, uncensored stream of consciousness.  Hoping to capture that small, sophisticated corner of Cannes, I wrote my observations.  I wrote whatever came to mind.   September 15, 2012 Hotel Mar...