Italy and Valentine’s Day just go together, don’t they? We went to Vietri sul Mare on the Amalfi Coast, romantic at any time but double it on Valentine’s Day. We took a room overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, drank Campania wine in lively piazzas and shopped for ceramics in one of the ceramic capitals of Italy. Vietri sul Mare doesn’t get the hype that Positano and Sorrento get but it’s worth a weekend, particularly on Valentine’s Day.

The most important part of visiting Rome isn’t what room you take but what neighborhood you take it in. After living here eight years, I’ve written a Rome neighborhood guide. It’s thumbnail sketches on 10 neighborhoods, from popular Centro Storico and working my way out.

From the way my cappuccino tastes on my balcony every morning to the way the streetlights reflect off the Tiber River, I have so many reasons why I love Rome I list them every year on this date. It was Jan. 11, 2014 when I moved to Rome and today is my eight-year anniversary, time for another whimsical look at my love affair with the city.

Rovaniemi, Finland, is a 75-minute flight from Helsinki and is the mythical home of Santa Claus. In 1985 the city built a Santa’s Village where it looks like a Currier and Ives painting with huge Christmas trees, sleigh rides and Christmas carols. Santa is around, too. But it’s more than a kid’s Christmas dream. It’s also a winter wonderland where we went dog sledding and saw the Northern Lights.