Italy, Italy, Italy … what is it about Italy  The beauty, the food, the wine ?

When I think of beautiful romantic settings it always comes down to Italy and my husband & I have been fortunate to visit that beautiful country many times. Favorites: a romantic candlelight dinner on an outdoor patio of the Vila Serbelloni on the shore of lake Como, An equally romantic dinner in a lemon grove, sitting under the lemon trees at Restaurant DaPaolina on the Island of Capri ( Heaven on Earth !!! ).. sipping lemoncello.

…… But the topper must be a carriage ride through the streets of Rome at sunset, with St Peter’s Basilica backlit by the fiery red sky on our way to a wonderful ( aren’t they all !! ) dinner at an outdoor cafe in the Piazza Della Santa Maria.

La Vita è meravigliosa  !!

Much like Candice, I’ve been invited to magical places with the most self absorbed, contentious men on the planet. Therefore the most memorable times for me have been with people whose company made the most inconsequential place the most interesting…

I’ll try to make this brief, I met this interesting man on the phone and we exchanged endless phone calls and emails. One day a envelope arrived with a plane ticket to Pittsburgh inviting me for a birthday weekend in his home town.  He arrange to take me to The Century Inn (where the Whiskey rebelion was planned) unknowing there was a wedding that evening and the place was packed.  We ended up scoring a table in the bar and before the evening was over we had people from the wedding joining us in the bar because that’s where the real "party" was.

Today its 3,915 days we’ve been together.   

It’s hard to top the simple times for me - we’ve traveled to wonderful, magical locations, but it’s when those feeling follow you home… that’s what I find more romantic and real. 

I’ve known my husband for 19 years and he still makes my heart skip a beat when he walks in the door.  He’ll stop along side of the road when he sees a field of daisies (my favorite) just to bring me a handful, he worries about my car and makes sure I’m safe and he makes a conscious effort to make me feel special and to make me laugh every day.

Several years ago, we married on a beautiful day in June on a small sailboat off the coast of the San Juan Islands.  What could be more romantic?  I’ll tell you - the hours leading up to the wedding.  A second marriage for the both of us, we were determined to keep it simple, but as we arrived on the island, we realized that we’d never written our vows.  Hours early (there are only so many ferries that run to the islands), we sat in the back corner of Safeway’s parking lot with our feet out the window talking about what how we’d like to declare our love and commitment to each other. 

Ah yes… give me the simple times…

The most romantic was a trip to a campground 10 miles from our house.  The rental was $5.00 per night for a camp site so we stayed two nights. We were both worn out from working and the money situation was bad at our house, but we needed a break.

At the time, we had no money to buy any kind of camping equipment, but we had a broken down old tent and a couple of thick old blankets, an old iron skillet and a fishing pole.

We used our last $25.00 on this trip.  We bought a package of hot dogs, a package of chips, a dozen eggs and a bottle of Boones Farm Wine completed our vacation on a budget.  After the wine was gone, we toasted each other with water in our wedding wine glasses we took from home.  We fished during the day, cleaned our catch and cooked it over a wood fire.  Then under the stars we confessed our love and didn’t think forward to the next few days of homelife without a cent to our names.  Things got better after that.