THE BEDS OF SUMMER

        Remember when Dorothy closed her eyes, clicked her heels and chanted, "There's no bed like home"?  She was feeling it. 
      Francesca and I missed our mattress last summer.  
Beds are a big deal, we spend more time in the bedroom than anywhere else.  
   
  Above is our bedroom at Brigitte Kavenaugh's house in Josselin, France. It is available on Air B&B.  The bed was a bit..firm but she assured us that she replaced the mattress after we left. 

    Every third store you encounter is trying to sell you the perfect mattress. We were hoping to land on a few when we traveled last summer but it didn't happen. Most mornings we woke up saying, "Let's hope the next bed is better".                    
    

    Our gite on Isle de Groix had two bedrooms upstairs.  We had to walk through our roommate's to get to ours.  Like most places we visited, the furniture was by IKEA. 

   Our Barcelona bedroom was pie-shaped and had this silly platform in the middle.  Francesca said it looked like an architecture student's first effort. To the right of the hard mattress was the show and to the left, a washing machine.

   You could wash your feet or your clothes without getting out of bed.

  The jumble of cabinetry below got us so confused on our early morning departure we left many things in that bottom drawer.  They may be still there.




We loved our old Travestere apartment in Rome and the bed was pretty good.  The front door was about 20" wide so you had to enter sideways.

There was a gourmet fast food restaurant a minute away and we ate there often.  


 It's the place to go for squash blossom pizza.


 
 Hard but beautiful, our bed in Venice.  



This place was a mix of 19th century furniture in the bedroom and grandma's favorites in the living room.


      We spent about 24 hours on airplanes that were impossible to sleep in.  

Ahhh

The trip over was torture, I had to spread my legs to fit into my seat.  I was so thrilled to see space in front my knees on our flight From Venice to Paris I took a photo.

    Our apartment in Paris, we think, was a former large closet.  It did fit a bed but not much else.

     Our summer adventures then took us east to California.  My brother Bruce just down-sized from a house to a cottage in St. Luis Obispo.  He has not yet downsized his considerable collection of tools; they now fill his guest room.  The only sleeping space available was in his kitchen.  With our blow-up bed anchored there, refrigerator snacks were just an arm's length away.
      
Brother-in-law Mario rented a big sailboat for our visit. Once we hit the high seas off Santa Barbara I lost my lunch (as is my sea-going habit).  I then sought refuge on a galley bed.  Francesca took this photo of me sleeping.  The boat was bouncing along at such an angle my window was underwater.


    Our last stop was in the hills of Berkeley, at the home of Francesca's sister, Carmen. The guest room was the one we all dream of, tasteful, spacious, and a balcony looking out to San Francisco Bay.  And the bed? A little harder than we're used to but we didn't complain.

    When we finally got back to Coconut Grove we appreciated our nest more than ever. 
  We climbed in, looked up at the ceiling and said in unison, "Ahhhh". We still laugh when we contemplate "the beds of summer".  
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