Lucy's Trip to Italy: Had A Great Time
 

Hi all my Fodors friends I am back! I am the "middle aged divorcee" who asked you all about where to mingle and meet in Italy. I see my question, as far as I can tell, has been deleted, as well as all your answers. <BR><BR>I had a wonderful, exciting trip. Beyond my dreams even. I am so glad I chose to go to Italy my first trip solo.<BR><BR>I did meet a very nice man in Rome and we spent alot of time together and got to know each other very well. He lives in Rome, widowed and a little younger.<BR><BR>I just want to thank you all for your encouragement before I left, without the good support from you (my friends were against me going alone) I would not have been so adventureous and open to meeting someone. This is a great site with great posters. <BR><BR>

Lucy<BR><BR>I'm glad you had such a good time. I'll be visiting Rome for the first time with my family in July and can't wait.<BR><BR>I'm happy your adventure was such a success. You go girl!!!

Hey, how about a trip report?

No, no,no, Lucy...that ain't enough, if you want to pay your debts, you have to do it properly: We want the details, ALL the details (well...almost all the details :-) ) Please DON'T leave us like that...

Well, I will tell some details.....but I am very busy catching up on my office work right now, but....we met the 2nd day I was in Italy, I was a little jet lagged still and was sitting at an outdoor cafe where we struck up a conversation, he learned English in school....oh, drat, the phone is ringing off the hook. I will post later. Thanks for the interest, it is a nice little story.

Lucy, way to go. I'm green. I'm going in the fall, so I want to know where, when, how, you know, all the details, or at least some of the details. Are you still an item or was it just a romantic trip adventure. Do tell us more.

I have a minute, isn't it awful to get back to an office full of stuff waiting for you? We were at the cafe, started talking and he came over to my table (how detailed do you want it?), we talked for a long time, then I went to change and he met me in the lobby and we went to a very nice dinner. We walked and talked afterwards until the wee hours. Oh, how beautiful Rome is at night, the monuments are lit up, there are people walking everywhere, the fountains are flowing and it is heaven.<BR>Next day I went to the Vatican museums which is amazing in itself and to St. Peters which is overwhelming. I had seen it on TV at midnight services on Christmas Eve, but had no idea, absolutely no idea, how grand it is in person. Sistine chapel is beautiful, but trying to concentrate while being jostled is not easy. <BR>I met my friend again for drinks before dinner....how much info is appropriate here? I don't want to bore you all. Let me know.

Bored!! I am living vicariously through you.

Enough of the Hubba, we want to know about the Bubba Bubba.<BR><BR>Did you get the full Italian experience tour?

YES-- the bubba, please.

Come on Lucy, don't leave us hanging. Tell us more please.<BR><BR>

Here I am. Where was I, ok, well, we had a lovely dinner and half way through we held hands (sorry that is it for that day). He is an artist/art dealer originally from Milano with an apartment in Rome and a home on Stromboli island and the one in Milano where is elderly father lives. Ok the third day I saw his apartment and we had drinks on his veranda (that's it "pretty much"). After a few days, hey, I am "middle aged" after all and alot slower than I used to be, I left to go to planned trip to Positano. He followed me the next day, surprising me at Chez Black where I was having a soggy pizza. I thought I saw him in the distance by the boats and then when he got closer I was sure, it was him, heart leaps. More later, back to work (if you want to hear this).

Lucy, you mean he followed you all the way to Positano?!!! How lucky can a lady get. Can't wait to hear more -

C'mon, Lucy...don't leave us hanging like this. Tell ALL!

Did he meet you in Venice???

topping

LUCY----- we're waiting......

Come on Lucy. More please.

Really, you people, Lucy is a lady. Real ladies don't kiss and tell.<BR><BR>Great trip Lucy!

I don't believe this. This is not fair. I am Lucy's age, have been in Italy for three years and have never had an experience like this. I am SO jealous. Come on, Lucy, don't leave us dangling.<BR><BR>Along these lines, has anyone read "An Italian Affair" by Laura Fraser? Delizioso.

Lucy - come on tell us more. I LOVED that book "An Italian Affair" - part of the affair takes place on Strombolli. SO romatic.

Hi, I am here, I was in Carlsbad, Ca. this weekend. Well, it was him in Positano, so we had wine and sat outside at the restaurant, then walked up and down the streets and I tried on clothes and he came in the stores with me and helped me pick out clothes and sandals. He didn't even get impatient, but of course everyone is on good behavior early in a relationship, as we "matured" people know by now. The next day we went to Capri, it is wonderful too. After we got off the funicular by the square, we had cafe and sweets then walked on the pathway to see Faraglioni, the rocks off shore. We strolled the long, and I mean long, way and stopped at a little cafe built into a cave with outdoor seating with a wonderful view of the sea. Then took the steps down to a pathway that winds around the island, past a natural rock bridge and further on you get a close up view of the rocks. It is a secluded path and we met only one other couple, then when you think it will go on forever you are back in town, kind of like life. Oh, yes, the couple we met were topless sunbathing on some rocks by the path. Sweet. Anyway, we wandered too long and missed the last boat back so we decided to stay on Capri, since it is so beautiful and romantic it surely wasn't a hardship, but now the question of where (and how) to stay. More later, if you want. "Ciao".

Makes me want to get divorced, just so I can have "an Italian affair"!<BR><BR>Please, please, please...more, more, more!

xxx, you don't need to get divorced for an italian affair, just take a little break...

Well, now the question is where to stay? So he says he knows friends that live on Capri and he will call them, so he pulls out his cell and starts chatting in rapid Italian. I am sitting on a bench when I begin to wonder if this is a part of a plot. I thought back to when we met, how he came to Positano, how we got to Capri and now are overnighting on Capri. It all fits in too perfectly. (I have seen many movies and read many novels, as you can tell). I don’t have much money, if that is what he wants, no wealthy family to pay ransom money, but how would he know? No reason to kill me really, unless just for kicks. How many others has he killed and thrown off the cliffs like Tiburus did? He did get animated when he told me the story of Tiburus’ wild parties in his cliffside Capri villa, that he would toss people off the cliff as the climax of the revelry. He couldn’t want me as a s.x slave, he would surely pick someone younger. Maybe he hated his mother and murders women who look like her….. All this in a few minutes time. And I would be staying in a villa with him and his conspirators, I mean friends? (I will leave you with this and be back after work, PDT.)

I guess this will stay near the top for a few days!!!<BR><BR>Lucy, you must be a writer. You end each section leaving us hanging.<BR><BR>Great!!!

Lucy is quite a troll, and has suckered a bunch of you guys right on in.

I too am eagerly awaiting the next installment.

LUCY! Don't leave us hanging like this! GREAT story. This is so much fun...

Beyond troll. High-quality fiction. Tell on!

I am sitting there getting a little nervous, it is getting dark and absolutely no one knows where I am, and I am on an island in the Mediterranean with an almost complete stranger. All I know about him is what he has told me. He made a few calls, and was disappointed to find that his friends were not on the island, but we could get the keys from a caretaker and stay there anyway. Well, the red light and the red flag went before my eyes, and I said I would be more comfortable in my own room in a hotel. Just remember, I didn’t have anything with me, just a sweater and handbag, reality set in and I could picture myself with him w/o deodorant, nightgown, slippers, curling iron, etc. and on the first night. And then the Tiburus thing. Nope. No way. I need my props. If I can’t vision myself doing something, I don’t do it. He was understanding, we did a little shopping for necessities and found rooms (2) in a small hotel off the covered walkway, with wonderful views. We had a lovely late dinner, then went to our rooms. The next morning. hair in a pony tail and wearing newly sink-washed clothes we had a continental breakfast and took an early ferry back to Positano. I needed some time alone at this point, to regroup, so we didn’t meet again until dinner at Villa Franca. Wonderful place, designer perfect, great food and views of twinkling lights. <BR><BR>(Off I go to movie: "Cat's Meow" now, I will check back tomorrow to see what the consensus is)

<BR>Troll or not, go on, I love a good love story....

We're all waiting Lucy! God, are we pathetic or what? Nothing against your story Lucy, I'm laughing because we all want to hear about the romance, not the travel! LOL...

Lucy-- Don't stop! This is better than a soap!

L U C Y !!! You're killing us :)

LuCY, LuCY, LuCY!

Oh where, Oh where has Lucy gone?<BR>

The next day we took a ride in his car, a convertible. I didn't tell him I was afraid of heights, I couldn't get my breath long enough to get the words out. The cliffs overhang the sea with a narrow road that turns one way and then another with not much of a railing. I had on a scarf that was trailing into the wind, then I remembered Isadora Duncan, so I tied it under my chin, Jackie0-ish. He was driving like a real Italian, gunning it and I have to admit taking the curves smoothly. Since it was a weekday, and it was fairly early in the morning, there was not much traffic, just an occasional tourist that he would pass on the wrong side of the road and one tractor. When we on the side of the tractor, he and the farmer exchanged a few words and gestures in Italian and the driver waved us by with another gesture. We were literally sailing on the road headed to Almafi. Just as we neared Almafi, his cell phone rang. Using one hand on the wheel, he talked and laughed (a little too much) to whoever was on the phone. OK, ok, hang up, Giancarlo. (I am thinking) if I am going over the cliff it will be with your full attention, not on the phone with the mysterious "someone else". A woman of experience knows when a man is talking to a woman he is intimate with. He was scolding, laughing, and slowed down the car. When he caught my eye, he patted me on the and and winked. Why did she call on my day with him? Who is she anyway? My heart dropped, I stared at the sea. Why didn't I sleep with him, have I been attentive enough, am I a cold fish, why didn't I take more Italian classes? Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the side mirror, instead of looking like Jackie 0, I looked like Mother Hubbard. Gasp. I took off the scarf and stuffed it in my bag. What can I do to get back his attention in Almafi?

TROLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey, I thought a troll lives under a bridge, I live in surbubia. Anyway....<BR>We drove into Almafi, he finished up on the phone, patted me on the hand again, I picked up my bag and my heart and we walked into town. We stopped in a little caf&eacute; for caf&eacute; and sweets again. My mind was racing, I have to be witty, I have to get him back. My witticims before with him have fallen flat, he takes the English language literally, and doesn’t get the nuances of my wit. I watched him order for us, his muscles tensed under his white shirt as he hung up his leather jacket . Muscles she has seen and felt. I can’t compete with another woman who is with him in town. I have only a few more days with him then back to America. I am starting to shrink, I am losing my nerve and my confidence. I feel like Katherine Hepburn stuttering and clutching her blouse in The African Queen. I am the uptight American. I am the one who analyzes every relationship, she is earthy, lives for the moment. I am the minuet she is the tarentella. I choked down the food and we walked through town in near silence. This isn’t how the day started out, it can’t end this way, I grabbed his hand and played with his fingers, his bracelet. I had to laugh to myself at my sudden lack of confidence. As we walked he suddenly turned, took me in his arms and said “tonight, I go back to Roma”, “for business, my clients are calling”.