Few things conjure up the idea of romance like an exotic trip with a partner, though the reality can be excruciatingly different, as these writers discovered

Hitting rock bottom

In 2004 I went on a two-week group holiday with some friends to Sidari in Greece. They were all couples and I was the only singleton so felt a bit left out. When I met a hot Greek waiter called Spiros (you couldn’t make this stereotype up!) on the third night, I fell for his charms and muscly arms. He was blonde, blue-eyed and very cute. We went on a couple of dates after he finished work during my first week then I thought, ‘what the hell - throw caution to the wind’ and decided to take things further. One night, drunk on ouzo, I invited him back to my apartment. He told me he’d finish work in an hour and would come over then.

Dimming the lights, I put on my sexiest thong, black patent heels – and nothing else. When he walked in to find me draped sexily in the middle of the double bed his eyes lit up. “Come here,” I whispered, before suddenly falling through the bed. I hadn’t realised it was two singles pushed together and hit my naked backside on the concrete floor. All he could see was my arms and legs sticking out from the gap. I yelled at him to help me but he was laughing too hard. I was in agony afterwards – I’d fractured my coccyx – so instead of a night of passion, we ended up in A&E. I was given strong painkillers and told to lie on my side until my injury healed. I couldn’t drink on the painkillers, or walk very well, so I spent most of the rest of my holiday either sitting by the pool on a rubber ring, or in bed – alone.

Nilufer Atik

There were three in the bed …

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sunset over the Mekong, Luang Prabang. Photograph: Leisa Tyler/LightRocket/Getty

I proposed in Angkor Wat at dawn on my girlfriend’s birthday. We decided to celebrate by going on an early – pre-marriage – honeymoon to Luang Prabang. We’d save on the airfares if we did it now, I argued. We wafted around the gilded wats and the colonial villas of the ancient Laos capital for a couple of days in a fug of love.

Then we got itchy feet and organised a three-day walking tour through the hill villages of the Hmong. Our marriage would start on an adventurous note. It was a disaster from the moment we entered the first village. We were to stay that night in the village chief’s hut. Only he didn’t appear to have been consulted. A bottle of local whisky was offered by our guide to smooth the way. We wanted to leave. It was too late and too far, he said.

Our guide cooked us a meal in full view of all the village children who stared on in hungry anticipation. We didn’t have the heart to eat it and offered it as a buffet to the kids. We were led upstairs to bed, where a thin curtain had hastily been put up to separate us from the bed shared by the chief, his wife and their children. We didn’t think we could feel any more embarrassed but gritted our teeth and settled down for an uncomfortable night’s sleep. That’s when the guide arrived and asked me to budge up as he was coming in to join us. It was the only place to sleep, he said. In the morning, after he’d complained about my snoring, we asked for directions to the nearest road, and sprinted off in the direction he was pointing.

Andy Pietrasik

Sicily with the wrong bra

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jude Clarke in her sexy honeymoon outfit!

My new husband and I flew to Palermo for our long-saved-for, eagerly anticipated honeymoon. I had packed extra carefully, with specially purchased box-fresh clothes and all those treasured and irreplaceable items (best bra, effortlessly flattering dress, most reliable shoes).

You guessed it: my suitcase never arrived. So I started my holiday of a lifetime in a pair of husband’s boxers and the grubby bra I’d flown in – not the kick-ass bikini I’d pictured. Plan B was soon activated: we’d cash our traveller’s cheques and go shopping. You only get one honeymoon, right? Right, except we managed to have our pockets picked. All our holiday money, along with my chance of gorgeous honeymoon clothes: gone.

When we returned for our 10th anniversary, I took hand luggage only, and changed my outfit twice a day. Because I could.

Jude Clarke

Grim death in Tuscany

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Matilda Battersby and beau.

We wanted to get away from it all on our first trip abroad, so booked what looked like an idyllic cottage near a national park in Tuscany. We drove up tiny roads into the mountains, where the views were sensational, the evening lit by fireflies. Then we spotted our hideaway – a tumbledown building which had, we learned, been an abattoir. There was an unscrub-off-able atmosphere of death about it, and our only companions were ants (that ate our food), lizards and scary black scorpions. The floors had holes so big we could chat between storeys.

The only saving grace – being on the edge of a brilliant mountain biking trail – turned sour when I cycled downhill too fast and ended up with a split chin that needed stitches. We drove a long way each day to escape our abbattoir – gelato and pizza made more romantic by the giant plaster on my face. We laughed – when it didn’t hurt my chin too much – and renamed it Sh-Italy.

Matilda Battersby

Blame the queen of hearts

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘This would be so beautiful if we were actually speaking to each other’ Photograph: Alamy

It was 1997, the year Princess Diana died. I know that because her death was the reason for a big row on the first night of our “romantic” island holiday. We were in Manila on a one-night stopover before a flight to Boracay. Andy, my ex, said I was being “typically” cynical about the outpouring of grief from people who’d never met Diana. It got personal, and spiteful: relationship over.

But, with flights booked, we had to continue our holiday. We sunbathed on stunning beaches, in silence. We snorkelled in clear waters, in silence. At night we sat in restaurants, sand between our toes, barely saying a word. One night I poured my heart out to the barman at a beachfront bar. I felt like I was in a film. Halfway through the week, someone stole my traveller’s cheques and I broke down. Andy did lend me some cash, but he didn’t comfort me as I cried myself to sleep.

Beverley Fearis

You’ve heard of Nordic noir …

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bergen … but on a good day. Photograph: Getty Images

As a honeymoon destination, Bergen, gateway to the fjords, sounded idyllic. We imagined a place where trolls frolicked in waterfalls, and we would feast on cinnamon buns. The reality was more like a wet week(end) in Wigan – if Wigan also had the highest food and alcohol prices in Europe.

Bergen smelled of fish (we were vegetarians), there was little to do or see and the locals were grumpy. Worse, our honeymoon coincided with a brass band festival, so at every corner, our ears were assaulted by trombones playing When the Saints Go Marching In.

It was July, but it rained – a lot. Like every single day. Our “cruise” around the fjords turned out to be six hours on a rickety tourist boat with no on-board refreshments. And we could see precisely nothing of Norway’s “wondrous landscape” through the impenetrable mist.

We tried to escape, but the tour operator said we’d have to pay for new return flights. So we stuck it out. At least we’d been upgraded to a suite, so I could watch soaps dubbed into German on one TV, while my husband watched the World Cup on the other. And they say romance is dead.

Hilary Freeman

Whatever happened to baby Jane?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘It didn’t look like this in the summer.’ Photograph: Martin Godwin

June. It was hot and we’d just left school, so a gang of us bussed and hitched to Anglesey, invaded a Benllech campsite and spent two joyous weeks jumping off sea cliffs, boozing and chasing girls. I was particularly smitten with a local lass called Jane; my mate liked her friend Julia. I was in love.

Going home was a wrench. We kept the dream alive with phone calls and flowery letters, and arranged to return as soon as we could afford it ...

October in Benllech is different. Deserted except for a stiff onshore breeze. The campsite looked like the Falklands. We pitched our two-man tent on the same plot as before, and went in search of romance. The girls were not there as arranged. They were not in any of the usual haunts. Hours of enquiry yielded a solitary rumour: the girls were at a party and the love of my life was seeing a local quarry-faced dimwit called Siz. We returned to the now-dark campsite to find our tent and bags had been nicked and the contents distributed to the gales. I haven’t been back to Anglesey since.

Dave Hall

Miles apart in Portugal

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Never a barrel of laughs … Fado, Portugal’s heartbreaking folk music. Photograph: Alamy

My fiance Michele and I met up in Lisbon to get over a rocky year living apart, but the holiday felt doomed from the start. On our first evening, we wandered in a daze of mutual misunderstanding through the city’s Barrio Alto. We stumbled into a Casa do Fado, where a black-shawled singer was performing fado, Portugal’s heartbreaking folk music. It was probably a bad omen. A couple of bottles of vinho verde later, we staggered back to our hotel room and collapsed into a sexless stupor.

The next day we drove south along the coast. The beaches were out-of-season deserted but we could see only the bleakness. A night in a historic pousada made us more aware of the distance between us: the canopied bed was too much pressure.

Back in Lisbon, we went through the motions of sightseeing. I gushed about the blue and white azulejos (tiles) and we ate bacalhau – or rather I did, submerging my sorrow in salted cod, while Michele left his cataplana (fish stew) untouched. While we were having a sad galão (milky coffee) before heading to the airport to catch separate flights to different homes, our hire car was towed away. Almost the last time we saw each other was in Lisbon’s distinctly unromantic car pound.

Georgina Palffy

Great ‘crack’ in the Caribbean

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sasha and his new wife on their honeymoon … before he cracked her rib.

Picture a young couple, high on love, life and the adventure of eloping. That was my wife and me as we arrived at our beach bungalow under the Caribbean sun in Grenada. So far, so magical until, one evening, walking back to our bungalow, yours truly remembered that he still hadn’t carried his bride across the threshold. To much giggling from my lovely bride, I threw her over my shoulder. Harrison Ford has nothing on me. The thing about throwing people over your shoulder, though, is that they must land with their stomach, not their ribs. I misjudged the whole manoeuvre and managed to crack my wife’s rib.

She didn’t leave me – in fact she was wonderfully gracious – but for the rest of the honeymoon there was a ban on making her laugh – too painful. And let’s just say lovemaking became a carefully choreographed dance.

Sasha Damjanovski

A fine Rome-ance

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Robert Hull with his wife on their honeymoon. Photograph: Robert Hull

Rome could not have looked more romantic: the roads were quiet, the Colosseum and the Forum were illuminated on our bus ride from airport to hotel in the early hours. The half-a-day’s wait in the departure lounge was behind us. It would be the perfect weekend for me to propose. Romance would reign.

On our first evening, we sat in a bar, glancing at football on the TV. My proposal had been greenlit, we were going for a meal and tomorrow we’d be at the Stadio Olimpico watching Roma vs Lazio, the rousing Rome derby.

I stopped at an ATM. My card was refused. Another ATM, another refusal. No problem … I had a credit card. At the end of the meal the waitress said the restaurant was cash-only. My fiancee paid. As we left, my bank called.

“Someone may be using your card. In Rome.”

“It’s me.”

“It may not be you.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s me.”

“We think it’s better to cancel your card.”

In the hotel bar, the TV ran the result of the Roma-Lazio game. My rubbish Italian had Sabato and Domenica mixed up so we’d missed the game. At the airport our fortunes changed: we got an earlier flight home. Sadly, our luggage didn’t make the same trip.

Thirteen years later we got married. Romance reigned. Or maybe not … on the first day of our honeymoon to Iceland our flight was delayed by nine hours and we waited for it at Gatwick’s Yotel … in separate bunkbeds.

Robert Hull

A sting in the tale

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Plenty of sun and sea – but definitely none of the other – in Sicily. Photograph: Alamy

Sicily, 2010. A swimming holiday. I had been misty-eyed over a slightly sporty colleague. We had moved on to flirting, and summer plans. His joining me on my holiday filled me with quiet hope.

On day two a jellyfish stung my face. It wasn’t so much a sting as an emblazoning, sealing one of my eyes and puffing up the surrounding area. Where some might have felt protective, I just caught revulsion on the face of my innamorato. We were confined to our hotel terrace, my forehead and chin swathed in bandages, his face wrapped in uneasy, trapped concern. I fed myself ice-creams through the gaps. The lavish care of our guide, who escorted me on hospital visits, revealed the couple we were not. We flew home early. “We” were not to be.

Keren Levy

La dolce vita with a sour taste

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Well, this is what I was hoping for …’ The famous Trevi fountain scene from La Dolce Vita Photograph: Everett Collection/Rex Feature

A Roman holiday. It was supposed to be a surprise 40th birthday present for my boyfriend, but he dumped me (by text) just before we were due to go. So I took my mum instead, and spent the whole weekend in the most romantic hotel, drinking wine in the room, refusing to go out, and ending up with a room service bill of nearly £300. A rather tragic conversation with the hotel staff as to why it was my mum with me and not the man on the reservation added insult to injury.

Lucy Dixon

An ill-advised ‘joint’ venture

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Don’t do it!’ Photograph: Alamy

My boyfriend and I booked an 11-night make-or-break holiday in Agadir, intending to base ourselves at the hotel but travel around to see Marrakech and Essaouira.

On arrival we discovered my credit card (Amex) wasn’t accepted by the car hire companies – so we had to almost exhaust our cash and ask friends to wire through more. A mountainous 10-hour journey to Marrakech along one of the “world’s worst roads”, littered with accident debris, and I nearly died of fright every time we turned a corner. When we discovered we could have taken an alternative route, we had a massive row.

On our penultimate night, my boyfriend managed to procure some Moroccan hash. I’m not a smoker, but thought I would try it. I had one spliff and spent the next few hours having what must have been an awful trip. My last words – before I passed out – were: “I just want to go home and be with my mum.”

We soon split up, but seven years later he got back in touch. And 16 years on from that fateful trip we went on our honeymoon – to Marrakech. He paid for everything, including the car hire, and I didn’t have to book a thing.

Samantha Soames

READERS SHARE THEIR ROMANTIC DISASTERS

Death on the Nile



Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘This friend of your daughter’s appearance on the cruise is a an odd coincidence, n’est-ce pas?’ Photograph: ITV Plc

A cruise on the Nile sounded romantic and exciting. My new partner was separated and I was his first girlfriend since the split. His nine-year-old daughter back at home was not impressed, nor was the ex-wife, particularly when he told them of our impending trip. All started well as we pulled out of Luxor and began steaming down the river.

The call to lunch interrupted our passion. In the dining room he was greeted by a nine-year-old girl, his daughter’s best friend, who looked at me quizzically. We tried to avoid her probing questions with comments about how exciting it was to see the temples on the banks of the river. Unfortunately, she was not easily distracted and took surreptitious photographs of us at every opportunity, texting them to the daughter at bedtime.

Any chance of sharing beautiful sunsets or cosy cuddles was destroyed by the juvenile spy and the constant reminders of who had been left at home, and my irritation was the death knell of the relationship. We sat separately on the flight home and shook hands at Gatwick.

Taniaz

Greek tragedy

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I can’t go out there. I’m staying in my room’ Photograph: Alamy

I was 19 and head over heels in love with my university boyfriend, who was 21. We got a last-minute holiday to Greece. Just the two of us, in the hot Greek sun, no one and nothing to invade the bubble of our mutual obsession. Until the first day, when I gleefully ran out into the blazing sun and he announced that he was basically allergic to sunshine and usually his mum would build him a “nest” of wet towels to hide under. Took me a while to process why he thought a holiday to Greece in August was a good idea.

What followed was a week of me resentfully dunking towels in the pool and draping them over a sun umbrella, so that he could scamper out of the hotel and dive into his Gollum cave. He also objected to me sunbathing topless. He asked me recently (I’m now aged 32) if I’d ever thought about getting back together. It was a firm no from me.

KMD

A weekend with a kleptomaniac

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘We didn’t order this wine’ Photograph: Alamy

I met James when he was in my home town visiting friends. We hit it off and he invited me to come and visit him for the weekend in Auckland. On the first day he stole a postcard from a gift shop. Then we had lunch at a fish market and two glasses of wine mysteriously appeared on our tray. It got progressively worse. We went grocery shopping and afterwards he opened his coat and stuffed inside were brie cheese, gourmet chocolates, grapes and other items. I confronted him about his stealing and he gave me a lecture about how he liked to “Stick it to the man.”

The kleptomania reached its final shameful heights when we visited a small family-run honey farm on our last day. He tried to get past the cashier without paying for the most expensive medicinal honey jar they sold. She was on to him though, and made him cough up. I was so embarrassed and furious we drove back to the airport in silence. I deleted him from Facebook on the plane home.

Messy Hair

A ‘short cut’ back to Avignon



Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Oooh, he’s got such a great sense of direction’ Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Avignon, 2011, our first holiday. We peered at the map from the bicycle-hire shop. Even a low-skilled map reader like me could see there was insufficient detail. I gazed at A, admiring his confident sense of direction. We wobbled on ill-fitting bicycles to Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Free samples of it. Everywhere. It grew dark. Time to go back. We argued about the squiggly map. I followed A, whose back light was broken.

The road was wide and fast with blaring horns. Not a road. A motorway. The wrong squiggle. Back in Avignon we were shaken, glad to be alive. Imagining ourselves as roadkill. Our en suite toilet became blocked and unignorable. A certain passion-killer. The next morning we discovered both bikes had been stolen. We’re still together.

Jenny Saxton