Avoid Vacation Disaster: Pay Attention to Cupid

In today's wired world nearly every hotel has an elaborate website. Traveler review websites abound with candid up-to-the-minute reviews of hotels, restaurants, and tourist destinations. Cost comparison sites tell you if you are getting your best deal on flights, hotels and car rentals, and even William Shatner, the Priceline Negotiator, is there for the meek of heart, exhorting them to go out there and bargain down their hotel room rates.

If you have a William Shatner in your household planning your vacation, great. You know you will be getting the best prices you can get. If you have a Mr. Spock, or are one yourself, your vacation planning will make certain logical assumptions about what you can expect based on the data available. Even the most meticulous vacation planning, however, cannot account for every possible contingency. These little snags either will become the stuff of legend when they are retold to friends and co-workers, or will be relegated to the conversation category of sore subjects, strictly to be avoided.

We had planned a perfect vacation in Amalfi, Italy. Off season, because it was less expensive. No problem there, because we love things that are less expensive. Less crowded, because in February it was still too chilly for sun-seeking tourists. No problem there either, we brought our jackets. A few less restaurants open, because many restauranteurs were taking a breather before the high season. Shouldn't be a problem, should it?

We hadn't considered Cupid.

We learned the hard way that St. Valentine's Day is the premier Date Night for anyone in a relationship in Italy. Italian men ignore making advance reservations at their peril. It was a Saturday night and we figured all the talk about St. Valentine's Day was just promotional hype, and that it would be easy to find a table. Wrong. After walks up and down Amalfi's main drag, by about ten p.m. we saw that even the little pizza shops and roasted chicken takeout places were running out of food, as other Italian couples, composed of sheepish young signores with their very disgusted signorinas, were giving up on eating in a restaurant and buying a couple of pieces of Pizza Caprese to eat by the fountain in the piazza.

By about eleven, we found a small, casual seafood restaurant that was about to close. We presented our beddraggled selves and they took pity on us. Most of the menu items were exhausted, but the waiters gamely soldiered on, not wanting to turn anyone away on this most romantic of evenings.

We should have taken the hint from our previous hosts at the thirteenth century monastery-turned-vineyard some miles inland at Dugenta. We were the only guests at the inn, and also were the only diners each evening. We dined lavishly on wild boar (il cinghiale) and other exquisite local fare. On the day we left, the innkeeper mentioned that they were completely booked that night, Saturday, and had been for months, because it was St. Valentine's Day.

The moral? If you're in Italy during St. Valentine's Day, you may not be able to find a place to eat for dinner unless you book it at the time you make your hotel reservations. "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou" might very well be your evening repast, but only if your local bodega is still open.