Favorite Places 2025 Edition

As has become our custom, we like to post our top 5 places we visit in a given calendar year. The “rules” we “follow” include that it must be a new place we’ve not visited before. But we also like to bend those rules (liberally).

This year, we visited southern California and Arizona, Boston and New York City before departing for the majority of our year in Europe. We spent a few days in Rome before returning to Portugal for a couple of months. Then we traveled across northern Italy and southern France in the summer and returned to France to visit Paris on our way to Greece where we visited three islands and made several stops on the Greek Peloponnese ending our trip with a few days in Venice. We rounded out the year at home, in Portugal. That’s a lot of spots. Here’s what rose to the top.

Lake Como, Italy. Believe it or not, in our three previous times visiting Italy (one of them for two months) we had never made it to Lake Como. We arrived after some sweltering days in Milan and nearly immediately fell in love. We stayed in a small, untouristy village on the water’s edge in a great little two-story Airbnb which was the remodeled boyhood home of our host with two fantastic terraces, one on the lake side and one on the mountain side. The beauty of Lake Como is hard to describe as the high mountains tumble down into the Lake and beautiful villages out of a postcard dot its shores. We visited Bellagio, Menaggio, Villa Carlotta and Varenna, returning to our Airbnb each night to stare at the mountains and lake as rain rolled across or the sun went down (or both). It was one of those weeks we do and will look back on and say “ah, remember Lake Como”.

Provence, France. This is our first cheat as we have actually been here twice before (once, only in Aix-en-Provence pre-blog). However, what was different this time, is we stayed in the countryside spending our days visiting hilltop villages and markets, wine tasting, checking out the Tour de France and spending our evenings on the patio of our Airbnb overlooking vineyards, olive groves and burnt-out lavender fields. We’d come for the lavender, as when we visited Provence and Gordes years earlier in late winter, we decided we had to come back to see the purple rows stretching out to the horizon. The hotter-than-normal summer had required harvesting much of it a little early, so we missed its full splendour, but did find enough to curb our appetites for it, at least for now. Read about our week in Provence this past summer here and about our favorite things about Provence here.

St. Èmilion, France. We had such a hard time choosing between an Airbnb and a hotel in St. Èmilion, we decided to split our planned time between the two. This provided two totally different experiences. Our Airbnb was literally right in the middle of a vineyard. It was rustic and felt a bit like an old farmhouse but was a fantastic, slightly more economical option which permitted us to easily walk into town for lunches and wine tasting before returning home to sit out on the terrace and watch the sun set over rows of grapes. The hotel offered a higher-end stay and was more of a check in and relax type of experience outside of town. We also visited the city of Bordeaux, but for us the highlight of our Bordeaux region visit was cool little St. Èmilion.

Paros, the Cyclades Greece. We spent about a week island hopping from Crete to Naxos to Paros and Antiparos this fall. Every island is different with its own personality. Crete is chaotic, historic, wild, proud and friendly. Naxos is stunning with majestic mountains, beautiful beaches and charming Naxos town. Paros is far more laid back than either and Antiparos was downright sleepy by comparison.

We just loved Paros. We stayed in an apartment next to a couple of beachside hotels (whose restaurants and beach chairs we utilized) a few minutes’ walk outside the village of Naousa. We were there near the end of the season, in a few more weeks most places shut down until April, but while it wasn’t busy, it wasn’t dead yet. Just a fantastic place to wrap up our Greek island-hopping odyssey.

Honestly, the only downside in our minds was they seemed to have a problem with regular trash pick-up. Already overflowing dumpsters were added to seemingly continuously. Maybe it was because it was end of the season.

But as if to make up for the rubbish, our last night as we set out for one more meander through town a downpour emerged, and we darted under the portside umbrellas of a local tavern. And as we quaffed our final glasses of island Assyrtiko wine and 56 Isles Pilsner beer a double rainbow presented itself in its full glory as two boats full of colorfully adorned bridal party members set out, in the pouring rain, for a wedding party. A final harmonious tip of the cap to the romance and beauty of these Greek isles.

Greece’s Peloponnese. This is kind of cheating because it’s a big place. But as we debated if our favorite place was Napflion or the Mani Peninsula, Monemvasia or Napflion we couldn’t decide. So, we just included all of it.

It’s a region of such broad diversity. Mountains, ocean, beaches, olive and citrus groves. Goat farmers and bee keepers. Small cities and seaside and mountain villages. Historical sites and beautiful scenery. Wonderful people and delicious foods.

We visited Napflion, Monemvasia (for a second time) the remote and wild Mani Peninsula and a beautiful hotel in the rugged mountains. You can read about our circuitous route here.