Going Solo: Travel alone–me? I'd always been too nervous to take a vacation without my husband or a friend. Then, 12 mind-stretching days in Italy changed everything

________________________________

I was surprised to hear the unmistakable speech patterns of
North American English. " So I introduced myself to the middle-aged couple
walking behind me. They quickly became my friends, hosts and tour guides.
________________________________

It had happened again–just like before. A chance came up to travel to Europe, and three friends had said, "Great! I'll go too...." And then an uncle offered his condo in Florida; a husband dragged another friend off to Palm Springs for a week of golf; the third suddenly needed expensive dental work. One by one, they had fallen away, and once again I was facing two weeks alone in Europe. The first time it happened, I stayed home. This time I decided to think twice before I canceled.

The how-to articles on solo travel were encouraging. Focus on a passion and you won't be lonely, one woman wrote–search for the perfect souffle in France. Sign up for a guided tour–you'll find plenty of social interaction. Canvass friends to see if they know someone to call for a drink when you get there. One of my brother's best friends had just moved to Rome with his family; I could look them up when I got there.

Lovely hotel, lovely dinner–a tender delicate fish deftly filleted before my very eyes–but still the forlorn feeling persisted. I knew jet lag was probably behind the feeling...but the first day in Rome had not gone well.

The first day left me fizzled, with a stain on my blouse.

There was no listing for my brother's friend, Joe Blum, in the Rome phone book, and no one to call for a drink or dinner. Dazed by sleeplessness, I had left my $10 carta telefonica in the phone booth at the railway station. On the way to the hotel, dragging my wheeled suitcase across Rome's uneven cobblestones–big mistake!–I stopped for lunch at a nice little trattoria. I ordered the Roman specialty, bucatini all'Amatriciana. The sauce was delicious–bacon, tomatoes and onion, topped with Romano cheese. But I couldn't wrap the bucatini–a long pasta, like spaghetti but much thicker–around my fork. Sitting alone and facing a crowd of elegant Italians, all eating with friends and colleagues, I was forced to slurp up the bucatini, spattering my blouse with tomato sauce.

The next morning, a bright blue Mediterranean sky overhead, blouse now free of stains, jet lag behind me, I decided to begin my stay with a few days in a small town before I took on the big-city excitements of Rome. I set off by early train for Gaeta, on the seacoast an hour and a half south of the city.

Gaeta touts itself as the birthplace of Giovanni Caboto–the "John Cabot" who landed in Newfoundland five hundred years ago this year. It's a lovely little medieval town whose ancient villas and crumbling stone walls climb steep hills that overlook a deep natural harbor, long sandy beaches, and what Homer called the "wine-dark" Tyrrhenian Sea.

Joining the crowds thronging Gaeta's narrow streets for a local holiday, I was surprised to hear the unmistakable speech patterns of North American English. " So I introduced myself to the middle-aged couple walking behind me. They quickly became my friends, hosts and tour guides. Carol Kerchenfaut, from Fresno, Calif., had come to Europe thirty years ago to teach in American military schools. Her husband, Enzo Mortorio, is the retired military commander of the ancient hilltop fortress that looms over the town. Carol's passion is the life of Julius Caesar, and Enzo's is Neapolitan history–and Neapolitan cuisine.
Late the next morning, sitting with Carol and Enzo in a little piazza in nearby Sperlonga, a whitewashed village perched on the rocks high above the sea, drinking a Campari in the warm February sunshine, it seemed incredible that less than thirty-six hours earlier I had been gloomily counting the days before I could go back to Canada.

I soon felt rooted; Italians stopped me to ask directions.

During the next two days in Gaeta, I would sample Enzo's homemade limoncello liqueur and baccala e patate, a delicious savory fish stew; have dinner with them and their friends at a rustic mountaintop inn; and meet Anna Simeone, a lively energetic young woman who runs Gaeta's largest marina. The day I left Gaeta, Anna was able to track down Joe Blum's phone number.

Back in Rome, I could look once more at the lovely sunset from my hotel room and think again of the days ahead–but this time it was with a different kind of regret. Only one week left before I had to fly back across the Atlantic!

Now, I had "connections" in this incredibly beautiful city–dinner with the Blums on Thursday, a soccer game with them on Saturday, an afternoon shopping with Anna, who was coming to Rome to buy shoes. I felt "rooted"–and so at home that Italians began to stop me on the street to ask for directions, mistaking me for a native.

________________________________

I crisscrossed Piazza Navona again and again to take in the
beauty of Bernini's fabulous fountain and to sit in the sun with
a cappuccino in the morning or a Campari in late afternoon.
________________________________

Would I have enjoyed my stay more if I had been with a friend? But maybe then I wouldn't have noticed the scene that could only happen in fashion-mad Italy–four nuns in severe black uniforms, standing in a circle happily admiring the sweater one of them had just bought. Chattering with a friend, I might not have overheard the old English lady, oblivious to the magnificent ruins of the Roman Forum spread out before her. Clearly disappointed, she was asking the tour guide, "But where are the cats? I did so want to see the little cats...."

Had I been with a friend, would the well-dressed man have turned to me politely on the street corner to shake my hand and say, "Tu sei bella...una bella donna," before crossing the street and disappearing into the crowd? I know it happens to every female who has spent any time in Rome, but to a woman "of a certain age"–even a longtime feminist–it was a lovely moment.

Another day I sought out...not the "perfect souffle" (this was Italy, not France), but the perfect pasta. I found it in a little restaurant in the heart of Rome's old Jewish Ghetto: penne in a light cream sauce, delicately flavored with pumpkin flowers and a pinch of diced zucchini. Every morning I woke up and did exactly what I wanted to do. I walked along the Tiber and wandered through the bohemian Trastevere district. I followed via dei Coronari and its labyrinth of narrow medieval streets, looking at the antiques in shining shop windows and watching craftsmen as they restored old furniture in little open-air workshops. I crisscrossed Piazza Navona again and again to take in the beauty of Bernini's fabulous fountain and to sit in the sun with a cappuccino in the morning or a Campari in late afternoon.

A week alone in one of the world's most civilized cities is not an adventure tour. And yet it was an adventure. At the end of my stay, I felt a real sense of accomplishment. Like many women who have traveled alone and learned to love it, the question was no longer, can I make it on my own? The question now is, do I ever want to travel with anyone else again?