There is a particular moment when a trip becomes romantic. It isn’t when you make the reservation. It isn’t when the plane takes off. It isn’t even when you arrive at the hotel. For me, it’s usually when I walk into the room, see two robes hanging beside each other, and realize: Oh. We’re really here together. A weekend away is a tiny rehearsal for another life. For forty-eight hours, you get to exist outside the usual architecture of your days. No laundry waiting at home. No meetings. No dog-eared to-do list. No refrigerator containing three condiments and something you’re slightly afraid to identify. Just you, me, a beautiful room and absolutely nowhere urgent to be. <\/p>\n
This is why I think the best romantic trips shouldn’t be over-planned. Please book the hotel. Please make a dinner reservation. Please know roughly how we’re getting from the airport to civilization. Beyond that, I would like room for trouble. The good kind. I want to wake up late. Very late. I want morning light sneaking around the curtains while neither of us has any interest whatsoever in checking the time. Eventually someone should make coffee appear. Ideally this happens through room service because I consider answering the door in a hotel robe one of life’s small luxuries. Breakfast arrives on a cart. Coffee. Fruit. Eggs. Pastries we absolutely did not need but ordered because calories consumed in hotels are governed by international maritime law and therefore do not count. I made that up. Please don’t consult an attorney. <\/p>\n
Then we decide what sort of people we’re going to be that day. Perhaps we’re adventurous. We rent a ridiculous little car and drive along the coast. Windows down. Music too loud. No particular destination. We stop whenever something looks beautiful. A beach. A vineyard. A roadside restaurant with six tables and food so good we immediately begin discussing whether we should abandon our lives and move there. Or perhaps we’re glamorous. We spend the afternoon wandering through shops, museums and beautiful old streets. We stop for champagne at an hour when responsible adults are presumably doing something productive. You buy something you don’t need. I encourage this. I buy something I don’t need. You encourage this. This is partnership. <\/p>\n
By late afternoon we return to the hotel. And this may be my favorite part of traveling with a man: getting ready for dinner while he’s in the room. At home, getting dressed is ordinary. In a hotel, it becomes theater. My dresses are hanging in the closet. My makeup has colonized half the bathroom. You’re showering while I’m deciding which earrings make me look the most devastating. You emerge wearing a towel and ask which shirt you should wear. I choose. Naturally. Then comes perfume. Perfume should be applied sparingly enough that a man has to get closer to discover it. Consider that free advice. When we’re finally ready, I want you to look at me like perhaps we should cancel dinner. We won’t. Probably. We have reservations. And I am hungry. <\/p>\n
Dinner on vacation should be long and slightly irresponsible. Order the good bottle. Get dessert. We’re not discussing cholesterol in Positano. We’re sitting outside beneath little lights while the sea turns black beyond the terrace. Or we’re in Paris tucked into a corner table where everything is candlelit and everyone appears more attractive than they did during daylight. Or we’re somewhere tropical, barefoot after dinner, walking along warm sand with our shoes in our hands. The destination almost doesn’t matter. What matters is the temporary world we’ve created. <\/p>\n
There is something revealing about traveling with someone. You learn how they behave when plans go wrong. Flights get delayed. Restaurants lose reservations. It rains. Someone forgets a charger. Someone else becomes inexplicably convinced that the hotel is “definitely this way” despite all available geographic evidence suggesting otherwise. Romance isn’t actually the absence of inconvenience. It’s finding someone whose company makes inconvenience funny. That’s the man I want beside me when our flight gets canceled. Not because he’ll magically fix everything. Although if he does, excellent. But because he’ll look at the departures board, look at me, shrug and say, “Well, I guess we’re staying another night.” And I’ll smile. Because another night doesn’t sound like a problem. It sounds like a gift. <\/p>\n
Maybe that is what travel does for romance. It interrupts routine long enough for you to notice each other again. At home, life competes for attention. On a trip, there are moments when there is nothing else. Just the view from the balcony. Your hand resting on my leg. A half-finished bottle of wine. A city outside that neither of us knows particularly well. And that marvelous feeling that tomorrow hasn’t been decided yet. The older I get, the more I think those are the luxuries worth collecting. Not objects. Moments. Beautiful rooms. Long dinners. Unexpected detours. Kisses in unfamiliar cities. The person beside you laughing when everything goes wrong. And every once in a while, waking up in a hotel and needing a few delicious seconds to remember exactly where you are. Then rolling over. Seeing who is beside you. And remembering exactly why you came.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is a particular moment when a trip becomes romantic. It isn’t when you make the reservation. It isn’t when the plane takes off. It isn’t even when you arrive at the hotel. For me, it’s usually when I walk into the room, see two robes hanging beside each other, and realize: Oh. We’re really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n