People when they travel are the same as at home, only more so. It is easy to spot problem areas if you pay attention. A needy or self-centered friend at home will be even more so on the road, for example.

We make it onto the train ok. There is a definite hush amongst the Divas. I suspect J has clued them in on what happened the night before. D is sitting with M and I am so glad. D goes to the WC and we talk about the situation. It is agreed that we will not tolerate any further behavior like that and I said if she gave me any problems, that she would have to go find her own place to stay. We get our first glimpse of the Med and our spirits lift a little. I just want to feel the sun on my face and can hardly wait to sit on the terrace of the Lorelei and relax. We are talking about all doing a spa day on Ischia. Friends from home, Luisa and Pasquele, have given me a name of a person she went to school with on Ischia. Luisa was born and raised on Ischia. I am really looking forward to this.

My notes for the next few days are really scribbled down and just reading them now is causing my stomach to tighten. But I will get the next installment done tonight and post tomorrow a.m. Gulp.

Oh, Barb, what a nightmare! It was funny till the Orso 80 dinner, then it got kind of scary. You really are a trooper, I wouldn't have been half as nice to half of them!
You have good karma coming your way for all your patience

Bless your heart. I really do appreciate your entire story because it really does help me in planning what types of questions to ask the fam when I am planning our trip.

You know I'm hooked when I read that your stomach is tightening just reading your scribbled notes and my stomach starts tightening in sympathy.

This makes me glad on one wants to spend any time with me.

Barb,
Thank you for yet another installment of your group trip from he** - I logged on after work hoping to read another chapter or two. I wonder what D will do next!
Christine

Barb, I can't help using the military version of KIA and at least some of them would have been if I'd been in your shoes!

Poor Barb....Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. How can you possibly make it thru the next week with these people, trapped like a rat in a cage??

Well, I'm sorry, because I've enjoyed Barb's writing too...I just think it's a little mean to go on a trip with "friends" that maybe didn't work out well (who wouldn't agree that it is darn near impossible to travel with a group of 5 friends?) and then come back and publicly rip them apart on the internet. It just makes me feel bad that it's entertainment.

It's Barb wanting to vent, wanting to get a little sympathy (she deserves it) and, make lemonade out of lemons, and to provide a cautionary tale which is very useful. Even if only 50% of this story were made up (I'm not saying it is, it all rings so true) it would be valuable for us to hear it.

For the rest of us, yes, it's part entertainment, it's also a learning experience and an opportunity to give sympathetic feedback to a fellow traveler. Real names are not being used, we will never meet those divas.
I'm glad to say. I thank Barb for sharing it with us.

I go away for 2 days and have had to read this whole report at once. I missed a lot.

While parts of the story are amusing, I mostly just sympathize with Barb on this one.

It is a very useful lesson in what works and doesn't in travel. I have been fortunate to travel with DH, with my immediate family (DH and 2 sons), extended family, and with friends. For the most part, it has worked very well. But, we tailored each trip to work for the group going.

I have also learned that just because someone is a good friend does NOT mean he/she would be a good travel companion. I look to travel with other travellers, not just friends.

I am a little nervous about a trip for 9, all relatives, that I may plan for June 2007 as a family heritage trip to Eastern/Central Europe. This report has helped give me some ideas for preparing this trip.

I will say I can't imagine travelling with anyone who wouldn't be interested in stopping for a drink in Piazza Navona!

While I think solo travel has some good points, I also wouldn't give up on the idea of sharing a trip with a few people (like many on this board) who would really enjoy and appreciate all you did, and would feel fine doing their "own thing" when interests diverged. Your experience is in direct contrast with another great report going on right now from maitaitom.

I hope you are able to savor the many good things about your trip and learn from the bad stuff.

Here's to your next trip!

Wow, Barb, I can't believe you have another eight days to go with this group! Makes me so glad I decided I didn't know anyone who would want the kind of trip I wanted and that I should go myself. No regrets! Hope your next trip is much better, and I'm sure it will be solo!

The thing most of us have not learned is that we cannot please everyone all the time. When we try, we just end up disappointed, since none are truly satisfied. But we never give up trying! I do try to say things in a more definitive way now (although I don't always succeed! ), such as "I'm going to enjoy a coffee here by myself a while" instead of "Doesn't this look like a nice place to stop for a coffee." After all, the only thing we can ever hope to control is our own reaction to the insanity around us! I would have been taking "cleansing breathes" like crazy on this trip... Reminds me of a story during NH foliage season a couple years ago: A woman driving her mom, mom's friend, aunt, and uncle around the mountains had finally had enough. She stopped the minivan, made them all get out, put their luggage on the side of the road, and drove off! (True story.) Hey, Barb, can you relate?! Enjoying your tale of woe, and wondering what was everyone's final impression of the trip!

Maybe you already answered this and I missed it, but why didn't you ditch them and go off on your own? Sense of responsibility? (Hey, it's not as if you're abandoning them in the Outback, and they've got each other.) Don't want to offend them? (Awfully nice of you, especially considering three of them weren't friends of yours.) Don't want to spend the extra money? (Frankly, I'd rather sleep in a cheap dump then be cooped up on a trip from hell.) Maybe you're just more tolerant of misery than you think!

Barb has all my sympathy. I got caught up in such a similar situation in Greece and didn't speak up. The only way I could find to cleanse myself of the nightmare trip was to recount all the details to several people. And Barb, I don't think you are publicly bashing these people on the Internet: you aren't using names, hometowns, or anything that would identify them. I am enjoying reading this and I keep coming back to check for the latest installments. Thanks!

Why didn't you continue the trip on your own if you couldn't stand the group you ended up with?

I do think there is a bit of bashing going on, to be realistic.

I am pretty sure that if one of these women ever comes across this report, they will surely feel well-stung, whether ir not names are used!

Barb, I don't know what you do for a living, but you really missed the boat by not becoming a writer. You're great. I've actually been sitting at my computer for quite some time now reading about your misadventures in Italy.

My husband just arrived home on 10/15 after a 4 week trip. We started with a tour group of 40 people (most of whom we already knew & are great travelling companions) for a 9 day trip to Budapest, Vienna and Prague. It was my first trip to Central Europe and found it very educational. Although it is nice to have a tour company plan your trip and take care of absolutely everything for you, there is definitely a downside. Since I knew that I didn't have to do any prep work, I didn't, and I found that I did not not enjoy the trip nearly as much as I do when I plan myself. I didn't know nearly enough about the three cities we visited, and the time just seemed to go by in a haze. The tour group left for home (NW Illinois)and my husband and I flew to Milan, picked up our rental car and drove to Rapollo. We were meeting friends there for a convention of Cartoon Art. My husband and a buddy of his formed The Carl Barks Fan Club many years ago and there are now members all over the world. Carl Barks was famous for the Disney Ducks, Donald, Scrooge, Huey , Dewey, and Louie. Both my hubby and his pal collect Scrooge McDuck memorabilia and artwork. My hubby is a banker, so I understand his fascination with Scrooge, but his buddy is a Lutheran minister, so I'm not quite sure what the connection is except for the fact that we're constantly teasing him about being overly conservative when it comes to money. We won't let him book hotels anymore because he always picks some flea bag hotel or B&B (read CHEAP) with toilet paper that feels like sandpaper and with a bathroom so small you can't shut the door.

Anyway, hubby and I left Rapollo for the Cinque Terra, hiked a couple of times there, then onto Florence via Pisa for a quick trip to the top of the tower. For some reason we did not have directions to the villa we were staying in outside of Florence. We also had no city map of Florence. Apparently we thought the place would just magically appear, or my hubby's exceedingly amazing ability to navigate would get us there. Duh!!!! To make a long story short, it took us nearly two hours to find the place after stopping for directions four times. Once we arrived, though, it was worth it. We stayed in an authentic Italian villa, the Villa La Sosta, recommended by some wealthy friends of our frugle (sp, it's late and I'm tired) Lutheran minister. We had our on private entrance with this door that had to be the original one. We were told by the innkeeper's daughter, Olympia, "Don't touch this, this or this, and NEVER touch this." So we didn't. There are 5 rooms, all beautifully furnished with antiques. There are also many pieces of art and memorabilia from Africa. The parents of the brother and sister who now run the B&B lived in Somalia for many years, running a banana plantation. They left when things became dangerous in Somalia but were able to bring back with them many of the lovely artworks they had collected over the years. Giusi, the sister, speaks fluent English as does her brother, Antonio. Giusi was a history major and also studied for a year at Boston University to learn English. I think Antonio majored in being appealing to the female gender. All of the single females wrote pages in the guest book about how wonderful Antonio was. He was great fun, but his main role is touring the wine country, and that just wasn't something we wanted to do,k so we spent more time with Giusi and her children. I have never felt more at home away from home than I felt at Villa La Sosta. We even stayed an extra day in Florence because we loved the place so much.

From Florence we drove through Tuscany abd eventually ended up in Rome for four days. We had a wonderful trip, and I am truly glad it was just the two of us. When the idea of the Cartoon Club exhibition first came up, the plan was that a group of us would travel to about 10 different cities together prior to reaching Rome. Each city had a club chapter and we were to have a dinner and give out certificates and plaques. After meeeting with this group four different times trying to plan the trip, I told my husband that I was willing to go to Rapollo with the group, but the rest of the trip would have to be on our own because the rest of the group would make me nuts and infuriate him. They either couldn't or wouldn't make a decision about anything, and it finally go to the point where I made travel arrangements for the two of us and told everyone else we'd see them when we could. I have a feeling our trip would have ended up much like yours, and to say that I would not have been pleased would be quite the understatement.

Can't wait to hear your next installment. Hang in there. Sounds like you need a little Valium instead of the Ambien! Or try a little, or a lot, of yoga breathing and guided imagery. And no, you don't imagine that you are strangling one of the Divas!

Warm regards,
Nora Paige, the gaelic gal

I don't think it can be really called bashing if the names of the people are KIA and Eiffel Tower Diva..
Just pretend this is a great fictional story of a young woman traveling with the wrong Travel companions..

Barb, I will definitely see the movie, even though I am reading the book LOL