Hello, friends. This is not a regular show. Just a little notification from Susan and I. Believe it or not, we still have a few spots, a very few, left for both of our upcoming trips in 2026.

The first of these is the Loire Valley in France. That trip is August 23rd through the 31st. And this trip, I'm calling it

Hello Chateau, because there's seven chateaus and one cathedral, but it's also so many other things.

We're having two days in Paris. We're going to stay in the same hotel that Sarah Bernhardt stayed in and tour.

We have private dinner in an

orangery. We will sample local wines and fromage. There are not one, but two river cruises. We'll get a

touch of the genius of Leonardo da Vinci and, most importantly, build even greater friendships

on our travels. We will be based in a city called

tour, and I'm very excited about this. It's a town I've never been to. Me too, and if you just

pull up pictures of it, it looks so charming. There are two days in Paris, so you'll get a little

bit of Paris, but you'll get a lot of the Loire Valley. And then later in the fall,

October 7th through the 16th, we are going to go back to Italy. Where exactly are we going to go?

Well, we'll be in Rome, where we have a private tour of the Vatican Museum. Off to Florence, my favorite.

Then the picturesque history of Venice.

We have an evening event at a 13th century castle like you do. That is a beautiful event. A lot of the things we're going to be doing are the same things we did on the tour last year. We did an episode

on that. It's number 275 from last October if you want details from

the people who went on the tour. We're going to sample Parmesan cheese at the source in Parma,

and we're going to sample balsamic vinegar at the source in Madina. We're going to be taking

two specific walking tours about women, one women of ancient Rome and the other women of Florence. We're going to be taking two specific walking tours about women, one women of ancient Rome

and the other women of Florence. We're going to run into some of our former friends, including

Artemisia Gentilesky and Catherine de Medici and Diane de Poitiers and Empress Sissy. Ah, the women.

We're going to have lunch in the Italian countryside, among other things.

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