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mikgrs

@mikgrs

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Travel 🧳 wine 🍇and 🎨 blog
“Post jucundam juventutem,
Post molestam senectutem,
Nos habebit humus”
🎓@hecparismba
✈️#47countries
🏃🎾🏄⛷️🚤

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✈️🌍 2025 — a year in motion

2025 was nonstop travel, work, and adventure — from ski slopes to beaches, wine roads to historic cities. Between 5 months in the Republic of the Congo 🌍 and 3.5 months working in France 🇫🇷, I still managed to explore 13 countries.

❄️ January — Florence 🎆🍷 🇮🇹, Zell am See & Kitzbühel 🎿 🇦🇹, transit via Netherlands 🇳🇱 & Germany 🇩🇪

💼 February — Republic of the Congo 🇨🇬

🌴 March — Thailand 🍍🍤🏝️: Phuket beaches and James Bond island 🇹🇭, Singapore 🇸🇬, skiing in Wagrain 🎿🇦🇹, Milan & Bellagio 🚢🇮🇹, San Sebastián : 👗 Balenciaga museum🇪🇸

💼 April — Republic of the Congo 🇨🇬

🍷 May — Tuscany: Florence, Bolgheri & Pisa 🍷 🇮🇹, Bilbao & Gaztelugatxe 🇪🇸, London: museums and Hampton Court 🗼🏰🇬🇧

💼 June — Republic of the Congo 🇨🇬

🎶 July — Paris: Robbie Williams 🎶🇫🇷, Sardinia 🏝️ 🇮🇹, Sicily & Apulia 🏝️🇮🇹

🏖️ August — Antalya & Side 🏝️🏛️🏺🇹🇷, transit Belgium 🇧🇪 & Germany 🇩🇪

🍇 September — Trento & Valdobbiadene 🍾🥂🇮🇹, Venice Regatta 🛶🇮🇹, London: Windsor 👑🇬🇧

🖼️ October — Paris: Eiffel Tower & Louvre 🗼🏛️🇫🇷

🍂 November — Venice🛶, Friuli🥂, Apulia🫒, Rome🏛️ 🇮🇹

🎄 December — 💼Republic of the Congo 🇨🇬
transit Ethiopia ☕️🇪🇹 & Turkey 🇹🇷, Venice & Florence 🥳🎄🇮🇹

⸻

✈️ 57 flights — 109 000 km, almost 3 times around the world
🚆 23 000 km by train, including France work commutes — over half a world around by rail
🔁 4 transit countries

Planes, trains, wine 🍷, beaches 🏖️, mountains ⛷️, cities 🏰, concerts 🎶, regattas 🚣‍♂️ — 2025 was full motion, nonstop adventure!

#traveling #globetrotter #jetsetter taken in Bordeaux, France by @mikgrs

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9 months ago

2025, lived through Italy 🇮🇹✨
25 nights 🌙 28 days ☀️| 8 trips ✈️

January — Florence, Tuscany 🏛️🎨
Stone, art, winter light ☕🕯️

March — Milan & Lake Como 🖤🏙️
Architecture, reflections, slow mornings 🪞🌧️
Galleria Brera ✨🏛️

May — Florence, Tuscany & Pisa 🌿🍷
Rolling hills, vineyards of Tuscany & Bolgheri 🍇🌄
Long roads 🚗💨 and longer evenings 🌅

July — Sardinia, Sicily & Puglia 🌊☀️🔥
Sea days 🏖️, heat 🌞, simple food 🍝🍷
Southern soul ❤️‍🔥

September — Trento, Valdobbiadene & Venice ⛰️🍾🛶
Mountain air 🌬️, Prosecco vineyards 🍇🥂
Historic Regatta ⚓🎭

November — Venice, Friuli & Puglia ☀️⛰️🌧️🫒
Fewer crowds 🚶‍♂️, more silence 🤍
Ending with sunny eternal Rome ☀️🏛️

December — Venice from the sky ✈️🌍
New Year back in Florence 🎆🥂🏛️

Italy is no longer a destination 📍
It’s a melody 🎶
And once you learn it 💫
you never really leave 🤍🇮🇹
🕰️

#rome #venice #florence #milano #southofitaly taken in Agriturismo Podere dell'Anselmo by @mikgrs

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10 months ago

🍾Reims, Champagne, France🇫🇷

Do you know what one day in a sommelier’s life looks like? 😄🍷

✨ Monday. A trip to Reims. ✨

⏰ 6:30 — Wake up 😅
🚄 7:30 — Train to Reims 🚆💨
🥐 8:30 — Breakfast at Lion ☕️

Then… champagne heaven! 😍🍾
10:00–15:00 — Tasting in the splendid Reims Town Hall ✨
Hosted by @sommeliers_international Magazine 💫

👩‍🍳 French and international Sommeliers, the Best Sommelier of Africa 🌍, wine influencers 🍇, and négociants — all sharing bubbles & passion 💛

🍾 38 Champagne Houses
💫 150–200 cuvées
😅 60 cuvées tasted (yes, sixty!)

🫶 Jamón, caviar, truffles, and Lehmann glasses — four stands to complete the palate 😋💎

New friends 🤝
Endless smiles 😄
A heart full of bubbles 💖

Quick pop into the Cathedral of Reims ⛪✨
Then back home:
🚆 1h to Paris 🗼 → 🚇 30 min → 🚄 2h to Bordeaux 🍷

4.5h later — compiling this reel just for you 😍

Because every sip, every smile, and every story deserves to sparkle ✨🥂

Santé! 🍾💛
#SommelierLife #ChampagneMoments #Reims #WineJourney #WineLover #LifeOfASommelier #ChampagneTasting #SommeliersInternational #WinePassion taken in Reims, Champagne by @mikgrs

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a year ago

✨ Caminata bellissima through the quieter heart of Venice… ✨

🚶 This walk is much calmer than the crowded San Marco 🗼or the busy lanes leading from Santa Lucia station 🚂 — yet far more picturesque at every turn.

⛪ Santa Croce — one of the most tranquil sestieri, where pilgrims 🧙 once arrived and the church still recalls the city’s early devotion.

🎨 Crossing into Dorsoduro, you reach San Pantalon: from the outside, modest… but inside, the ceiling bursts into life with the largest painted canvas in the world.

⚪ On the façades, look for the small round white stone plates — carved in Istrian stone, sometimes windows, sometimes family emblems, little fragments of Venice’s history.

🏛️ Then into San Polo, the oldest quarter. Here beats the historic heart of trade: the Rialto Market 🐟🍇🥬 — alive for over 700 years, once filled with silk & spices from the East, today still buzzing with locals and colors.

🌉 The path opens to the Rialto Bridge and the shimmering Grand Canal 🌊 — Venice at its most timeless.

☕ And just nearby, my ritual stop: Caffè dei Dogi, to bring home the aroma of Venice.

👨‍🌾Just across the Rialto Bridge, Giuliana Longo’s boutique offers timeless Venetian hats 👒 — mine is from there, and it’s truly everlasting.

⸻

PS: 🎶 Soundtrack — “Caminata bellissima” by Gino Santercole, from the funny movie Segni particolari: bellissimo with Adriano Celentano. 🎬🇮🇹

#venice #church #channels #gondola #sanpolo #santacroce #dorsoduro #rialto #sanpantalon #adrianocelentano taken in Venice, Italy by @mikgrs

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a year ago

🏛️🖼️Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. Milan. Italy 🇮🇹

Located just a few steps from the Duomo,
@pinacotecaambrosiana is less crowded than the Brera gallery but holds some essential masterpieces of Italian and Dutch masters, as well as its building that constitutes the archaeological heritage of Milan.

1. Leonardo da Vinci - Portrait of a Musician 🎻
2. Emilio Longoni - Locked out of school
3. Exedra room
4. Jan Breughel - Water 💧 and Fire 🔥
5. Jan Breughel - Vase of flowers 🌺
6. Mouse 🐀 and Rose 🌹
7. Tiziano Vecellio - Ecce homo ☦️
8. Sandro Botticelli - Madonna of the Pavillion 👩
9. Sala Federiciana Library 📚
10. Court of the Great Spirits

#dutchpaintings #leonardo #tiziano #botticelli #janbreughel #library #staicase #mosaics #patio taken in Pinacoteca Ambrosiana by @mikgrs

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2 years ago

⛰️❄️ Wagrain. Salzburg. Austria🇦🇹

Day 1. Wagrain, Alpendorf, Sankt Johann im Pongau.

After a warm week, the day of arrival was snowy and foggy. The next morning, the temperature slid to -7 degrees C, and the sun ☀️ reappeared, making it perfect for March skiing.

My first trial of skiing with Insta360 X4 - a 360 action cam 🎥with chest and pole mounts, invisible selfie 🤳 stick and backpack 🎒

Pretty impressive result, easy and nice footage. I used side, backside and frontal selfie modes with ski pole mount, POV with the chest mount.

“Tiny planet” feature for cable car and up down views and mega wide angles for the rest while editing.

The edits were done with the Insta360 app on my iPhone 15 Pro max - easy but could be better performed with a laptop.
So, I‘d say it was
“Directed by Robert Weide”.

#skiing #actioncamera #alps #snow #winter #outdoors #insta360x4 #passion #directedbyrobertweide

🎥@insta360 ⛰️

🧥@peakperformance
🎿@atomicski 🧤 @hestragloves 🎒@thenorthface
⛳@leki.ski.outdoor
🏩@adapura_hotels taken in Wagrain, Salzburg, Austria by @mikgrs

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2 years ago

#007 #manwiththegoldengun #bond #jamesbond #paradise #rogermoore by @mikgrs

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2 years ago

taken in Ponte Vecchio by @mikgrs

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2 years ago

🌊🪨🛶Cadaquès. Costa Brava. Spain 🇪🇸

A Fisherman’s 🎣village🏡 on the Spanish border 🛂with France in the Pyrenees foothills ⛰️became famous due to the one of the biggest genius of the XXth century and the most emblematic person of the surrealism 🎨- Marquis de Púbol ⚜️or as we know him - Salvador Dali. Native of Figueres, he chose Port Lligat - a creek by Cadaquès as his main residence.

When one thinks of Dali 👨‍🎨, first what comes to mind are his moustache 🥸 then iconic masterpiece works 🖼️ with yellow desert soil 🏜️ blue skies background exerting loneliness 🪞 and timelessness ⏱️.

Indeed, Dali drew his inspiration from the sea 🌊 contrasting with sun ☀️, rocky coast🪨 covered by olive tree🫒 birches and sunbathing naked people bodies 🏊‍♂️. The calm of this devine corner of the Costa Brava where he was spending most of his time working from home in the years from 1930 to 1982 became the main source of Dali’s fruitful artistic 👨‍🎨 career.

The winding road to Cadaquès lies through a tiny vineyard Martín Faixó, where one might stay overnight or as we did taste the wines and olive oil at their restaurant on the waterfront of the village.

#cadaques #salvadordali #fishermanvillage #coastalliving #surrealism #inspiration taken in Cadaqués by @mikgrs

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2 years ago

Sicily 🌴Italy🇮🇹

🏝️San Vito Lo Capo 🪨

📍This location is my new paradise: peaceful and hidden in the northwest of the island, San Vito lo Capo possesses the clearest and the warmest water🏝️ with a shallow seabed, protected from jellyfish 🪼and dominated by a picturesque cliff🧗⛰️. It looks like a tiny Rio👙, n’est-ce pas❓😃

Every time in Sicily, I enjoy the caponata, the recipe of which I'll share in the comments:
🍆🧅🍅🫒🧃🥜

This time, I also discovered Sicilian couscous🥘: excellent! Greyish brown semolina with almonds, dried tomatoes 🍅 and eggplant 🍆 - nothing to do with the North African one! Seasoned with olive oil and pesto sauce - it is delicious. Go to @profumidicouscous restaurant with the best wine list - my God, it's heaven! 😇 ☁️ tasted paired with Marco di Bartoli Pietranera dry zibbibo🍾.

Finally, at @miraspiaggia_hotel seaside restaurant, check out the local pasta - “busiate” 🍝 I liked it “alla scoglio” (with the seafood): shrimps🍤, lobsters 🦞 prawns 🦐clams🦪, mussels, octopus🐙, cuttlefish 🦑… paired with the Mamari Sauvignon Blanc from @cantinefina : Golden sand⌛, red umbrellas ☂️ emerald sea 🌊 🩴 with the palm trees 🌴 - the colours you find in my plate and on the Mamari bottle 🍾label.

In the evening, the place turns into a thousand little white houses🏘️ enlightened with the garlands 💡✨ with its small nightlife. 🍸

#sicily #italy #beach #sea #vacations #gastronomy #wine #caponata #couscous #recipe

⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ taken in San Vito Lo Capo Beach, Sicily by @mikgrs

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3 years ago

©️Montreale 🍷Sicily 🏝️Italy 🇮🇹

Tenuta Sallier de la Tour. Tasca D’Almerita.

The way from Marsala to this wine estate 🏡founded three centuries ago in the middle of Western Sicily - the Monreale DOC takes about 1 hour plus 15 minutes for stops to observe 🔭 the sheep 🐏 and landscapes. The grass 🌱is no more covering hills, it turned to straw and got burned either by the sun ☀️ or by witty agronomists 🚜. Surprisingly on arrival, you are excited to see a healthy verdant vineyard with ripe bunches! 🙌

Palms 🌴 alley at the entrance reminds you of the Moorish and Phoenician heritage and vicinity of the African coast.

A 130 ha long-time family-owned and now the property of the large wine producer @tascadalmerita Tasca Conti d’Almerita, this estate is probably the most “normal” one in the necklace 📿of its pearls ⚪: no volcanic soil, not located on an island, not the biggest and the most visited, but definitely the most “Sicilian”.

With the vineyards at 360* around from 600 to 900m altitude, it allows you to taste all the main 🍇 varieties and styles: full-bodied and balanced Grillo and sharp refreshing Inzolia whites, light-bodied Nero d’Avola and intense Perricone with mild international Syrah reds.

However, we tasted also the emblematic wines 🍾 of Tasca: from Etna 🌋(Tascante), Mozia island 🏝️, and Regaleali accompanied by the olive oils 🫒from all the Tasca family Tenutas and bruschetas 🥪 before rushing to chase the Sunset 🌇 in the salinas of Marsala.

🟢Inzolia Sallier — light and fresh, mineral wine.

🟡Catarratto Regaliali - a wine with character, fleshy, complex, flowers and citrus aromas, bittersweet in the palate.

🟠Grillo Whitaker - a perfect equilibrium and gastronomic wine from Mozia island facing Marsalla.

🔴Nerello Mascalese Tascante - fat bacon 🥓 and acidic berries 🍒 from Etna 🌋

🔴Nero d’Avola Sallier - pharmaceutical and balsamic 🌿hints.

🟣Syrah La Monaca (The Nun) Sallier - my favourite red, tasting plums and smelling Christmas spices 🎅

🟤Rosso del Conte Regaleali - coffee, tobacco and leather, velvet wine☕ 🍂

#wine #winetour #sicily #etnawine #winetasting #summerholidays #marsala #grillo #inzolia #nerodavola taken in Tenuta Sallier De La tour by @mikgrs

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3 years ago

One day of an ex-pat between Lagos and Port Harcourt - Nigeria oil-producing centres.

#africa #nigeria #lagos #airport #travelling #portharcourt #africancities #africanlifestyle #oil #petroleumindustry #expatlife taken in Lagos, Nigeria by @mikgrs

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4 years ago