OK, I've cracked, I can't take it any more.
joie's registration name must be tolerated, but in real French, it's joie d'amour. You cannot have "de" before a noun that starts with a vowel.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'll shut up.

LOL, Marilyn, that felt good, didn't it? :D

Oh lordy, it did, Scarlett!
Now I await the flames for my presumption. :-(

Ehe flames are engulfing you!!! :)

Bonsoir Mimi ((F))
We can all go up in flames together :D

You're all a bunch of flaming Queens!

LOL, NYCFS, join the crowd ((F))

A Royal pain....? ROFL!

The only kind of queen to be, IMHO.

It is a takeoff on my real name so the de stays, sorry ladies. I have French blood so maybe I should try going to France too sometime.

Now we have decided to land in Pisa and take trains south to REggio de Calabria and then go over to Sicily stopping on coastal towns on the way because we don't get to the ocean very often and my other friends want to join us because it sounds like fun to them too so maybe they will.

Has anyone traveled with three other women? We can all get along I hope and maybe there is safety in numbers?

In general I would say there is safety in numbers, but in your case it sounds like your friends would just get you into trouble.

Handlers? Perhaps Rex, the phrase should be Wranglers!

Anyway, maybe a few of the well...older beauty queens should join the tour...wear black and be "duennas"?
Is that the word for chaperone?!
I'm thinkin' of all of us Sophia Loren types...

Personally I would never travel with more than 1 other person.

4 girls might be fun for renting a house at the beach (for example), but for taking trains, getting hotels, siteseeing, moving all around southern Italy it will be more complicated than you realize. Not to mention the group dynamics presenting more opportunities for disagreement or conflicts.

As far as safety in numbers, I'd say the opposite... that the group as you've described your friends will draw even more attention to yourselves than any two alone would.

Beauty queens (even if only in their own minds) of any age, from about 17 to 87 would be welcome on a trip with me as co-wranglers, rattlesnake handlers (the kind that comes in a glass), bo-janglers, duennas, doulas (well, presumably we would not have anyone on the trip in labor!) or whatever!

And maybe even flaming queens as well. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

>4 girls might be fun for renting a house at the beach (for example), but for taking trains, getting hotels, siteseeing, moving all around southern Italy it will be more complicated than you realize. Not to mention the group dynamics presenting more opportunities for disagreement or conflicts.<

This is very sage advice. My recent trip to Europe was supposed to be just my sister and I. Then 2 other women were added (not my idea, long story).

The trip would have been so much easier and enjoyable had it been just my sister and I. We returned from the 3 week trip barely speaking to the other two women.

How oh how did I miss this?

Miss Spinach. only in America, right guys? LOLOL

joie said "They said the women over there do what the men want and don't have a real say in an old fashioned society structure."

Have you MET any Italy women? Feisty ain't the word for it! These women don't do ANYTHING they don't want to do, which is why italian men prefer nice compliant girls from the US!!

I have an Italian friend in London who caight some guys stealing the tyres off her car. Now I would have hidden behind a tree and phoned the police. But Rosa? No WAY were they getting one over on HER. She marched up to them, screaming like a wailing banshee, and demanded that they put all 4 tyres back. The men duly complied, while she stood over them, questionning what their mamas would do to them if they knew.

Now, I'm not suggesting this is a good and sensible way to tackle crime, but you gotta admire the spirit of Italian women!