The holiday romance never dies



The Marco Polo. Let the romance begin....

Holidays are perfect for falling in love. You're nice and relaxed, your mind is open, really open, and there's nothing on your agenda but the pursuit of pleasure. I've fallen in love with a surprisingly diverse gaggle of men while on holidays. Let me clarify, for the sake of modesty, that when I say 'fall in love', I mean that I may have done nothing more than make electrifying eye contact with a guitarist as he walked off stage after a gig. But, along with my photos, ticket stubs and hotel key cards, I do also have a lovely collection of holiday dates. There was the charming hostel manager in the Lake District, the Oxford scholar in the Spanish mountains, a handsome but goofy airline employee in Ireland, and a bohemian, bagpipe playing Canadian in the Rockies. They added another dimension to some fantastic travels. There's no other travel experience as authentic as getting to know the locals!

Let's face it, there is a whole travel industry that revolves around the hedonistic, uninhibited notion that holidays equal sex (think Contiki or any package tour to Ibiza). What I didn't appreciate until recently, was that the notion of a holiday peppered with romantic interludes was not exclusively held by the young and carefree. They are also held by a more senior set – the retired cruiser. 

I ended up on a ten-day Scandinavian cruise with 700 other people. I was the youngest person by about a generation. I was travelling on my own. (Yes, there is another story here, for now just accept that, indeed, I was there under my own free will.) Of the 700 folks, many were taking a second, long overdue honeymoon, some were kicking up their heels in retirement, and yet others were celebrating some big mile stone (80th birthday!). 

But there was a hefty proportion of single seniors – men and women – just as crafty, randy and hell bent on getting some action as any 18 year old lad at a stag party. A whole bunch of singles hit the cruise hard, searching for their own holiday romance. The nightclub was always thriving well past 3am and the scene vaguely resembled any downtown nightclub  – bleary eyed, pleasantly intoxicated folks copping sneaky gropes while gyrating on the dance floor. There were quiz nights, dance classes, and extravagant shows each night and at every turn single seniors making the most of these networking opportunities to bag a companion. Romance bloomed, flourished, soured and re-bloomed.

Conveniently (for the women anyway) there were two fellows employed solely for the purpose of offering companionship to any single lady who needed a dance lesson or bridge partner. They could only be described as 'distinguished chaps' in their 50s, dressed to the nines every night and on call for a saucy little rumba or maybe a quiet cocktail on deck. I was told it was expressly forbidden for them to really 'fraternise' with their clientele but upon questioning Ruby, an 80-something woman I could only describe as a party animal, if any 'hanky panky' went on, she snorted contemptuously (perhaps it was my use of the words 'hanky panky'?). Ruby looked at me as if I was a naive child (I suppose I was young enough to be her granddaughter). 'Of course, my dear, every night. And always someone new'. She looked at me knowingly, pointedly, so I could only assume she had firsthand knowledge.

The cruise unfortunately didn't offer me a darn thing by way of liaisons, innocent or otherwise. Not even the bar tender generated any spark and I'm always a sucker for a smooth bar tender. But seeing other people falling in love/lust was sweet to witness (not in a voyeuristic, peeping through the porthole kind of way!) and it gave me heart – the pursuit of holiday romance clearly never dies!