From: "Peggy Siegal" <MINIMMIM> To: "jeevacation®gmail.com" <jeevacation®gmail.com> Subject: Fw: Summer Holiday Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:27:35 +0000 FYI- p ---- Original Message From: Peggy Siegal To: Sent: Fri Jul 24 05:05:54 2009 Subject: Summer Holiday Caroline- Thank you so much for reading my Cannes Diary. Last year I had 10 pages, 6,000 words for 10 days and 10 films. This year I wrote the same and they made me cut it to 2,000 and four pages because of a thinner magazine. Such a shame. It means a lot to me that you read it. Here is a not-so-brief run down on 10 days back in Europe. Last Thursday Jaqui Safra (of European banking dynasty) sent the G4 for his girlfriend of 30 years and a theater producer, Jean Doumanian and me. Hugh plane- two beds- two people. Not bad. We picked him up in Geneva, flew to Genoa and were driven to Portofino. Hotel Splendido nestled in a mountain overlooking the harbor is heaven on earth. I am 24 hours older than Jaqui, so the invite was for a birthday weekend celebration. His best friend Italian/French Jewish intellectual author Alain Elkann (once married to Gianni Agnelli's daughter and father of playboy Lapo) entertained us all weekend in his new lover's villa next door to hotel. She is Franca Sozzani and has been the editor of Italian Vogue and all Newhouse publications in Italy for 20 years. She is tiny, a bit hippie chic, has blond hair with tight waves to her waist, is best friends with Valentino and Karl Lagerfeld....and has written many coffee table books on fashion, art, design and photography. I was fashion and literally challanged but held my own. Alain is Italian Minister of Culture and even took us to a lecture he gave to bookstore owners in a monastary...in Italian...we clapped. Monday Jaqui flew us to London. Jean took up to opening night of her new play, "The Mountain Top," a fictitious account in the Memphis hotel room on the last night Martin Luthur King was alive. It's a two character