Sarah and I -- now supposedly masters of backpacking efficiency after nine months on the road -- were in fact quite the opposite. Carpet shopping in Turkey and ceramic shopping in Florence had ballooned our luggage into six cumbersome and extremely heavy bags (I am now of firm belief that the only substance on earth more dense than that which is used to make Chinese mountain bikes is the stuff they weave into Turkish carpets). Weeks of lugging these things on and off buses and trains had stretched out our arms and rubbed raw our fingers, and we couldn't wait to check them at the station. Luck wasn't on our side, however. The luggage room was closed. With no other options, and with our train leaving in minutes, Sarah and I slung our six bags of lead onto the train and whimpered and whined as we pulled away.

We were headed south to the province of Calabria, more commonly known as "the foot" of Italy. Last summer we used an Internet booking agent to reserve a villa in the small town of Tropea, but other than a few snapshots on their web site and some flowery descriptions in the marketing materials, we didn't know what to expect of the town or of the villa. We hoped things would turn out alright.

The train snaked its way south, more or less following the west coast. After we passed Naples and Vesuvius, the towns became noticeably poorer. We saw the same unfinished concrete and brick apartment buildings with re-bar sprouting like dandelions out of the tops of the columns that were such a common site in Egypt and the rest of the eastern Mediterranean. This is the southern Italy that northern Italians talk about; a place of rampant crime and shiftless slovenly poverty; a playground of the Mafia and a region best left alone by the tourist.

The decaying train station in Lamezia did little to quell our fears. We and our mountains of bags had to transfer from the first-class comfort of our beautiful Roma Express to a rickety 2-car jalopy of a train reminiscent of Vietnam's finest. This train jiggled along the coast, ducking frequently into tunnels, and eventually we stepped off in Tropea, seven hours after leaving Rome. A taxi brought us through small empty streets and stopped in front of a crumbling stone wall. Our villa. We walked through the main gate, stepped into a small courtyard, then swung open our door and stepped into the villa itself.

I realized right away that we'd done good. We scored, big time. I could almost hear Robin Leach and his caviar dreams narrating our initial walk-through.

Our villa was perched high on a cliff that dropped straight down to the sea. Stepping through the front door, our eyes were immediately drawn to the hazy expanse of blue shimmering through two huge windows the size of doorways. It was as if someone had airbrushed the lower two-thirds of the windows lapis blue. We stood in a large room that felt big despite the two couches, dining table, and grand piano. Rough stone walls arched to the ceiling. A walk-in fireplace anchored one end of the room, and stone corridor led off toward the kitchen and bedrooms.

Before exploring the rest of the villa, I walked up to one of those huge windows and swung it open. The breeze held a faint taste of the ocean -- not at all fishy and just enough flavorful musk of salt. Far below I saw two white sand beaches, one to the left and one to the right, and straight ahead at about our elevation was an old church built atop what used to be a peninsula but through erosion was now a steep island. I heard the faint shouts of a pick-up soccer game on the beach and the low rumble of the surf.

I left the window and wandered through the rest of the villa. Three bedrooms, a gourmet kitchen, and 2 1/2 bathrooms, all tied together in a twisting maze of corridors and small stairways. Upstairs, a roof-top sun-porch featured a stunning view and an elegantly tiled wading pool. Our building, it turns out, was a 17th century convent that was supposedly built by a mother as a kind of penance after her son committed a murder. Whatever her reasons for building it, I'm sure glad she did. It was an amazing place, beautifully converted, and I couldn't wait to spend the next two weeks there.

We put on our swimsuits and made our way through town and down a long stairway to the beaches. The sun was hot and the water was refreshing but swim-able. After a nice roast on the sand we headed back up to the villa for the first of many evenings of excellent pasta, unmatched views, and a few glasses of the local tangy vino rosso. The sunset was a spectacular flame of orange, which we chose to take as a signal that it was time to go in search of our after-dinner gelato.

Tropea's historical center, where our villa was located, is a quaint maze of cobblestone streets. Like most of Italy (and the south in particular) all shops and businesses close for the afternoon, so it was only now that we saw the town coming to life. What earlier in the day had looked like boarded up buildings were now lively groceries and butchers and pizzerias and delis. We soon found ourselves on the main thoroughfare -- no cars, but thick with locals taking their evening stroll.

The Italians have perfected the art of the Stroll, and they practice it regularly. "Walking" in America means strapping on the Nike's and hitting the mall with your fellow retirees, and its all about burning calories and counting heart rate and going farther or faster. In Italy, though, the evening stroll has nothing to do with how fast or how long. Most people here, I think, don't really care where they are going at all. Instead, it is about talking to your neighbor or meeting new people. It's about sharing quiet time with your husband of 60 years. Sometimes a walk isn't even a walk; it's two old men standing in the middle of the street arguing vehemently about something inconsequential, hands waving wildly and smiles on both sides. The stroll is for teenagers, for families, for couples, for soloists. Beats the heck out of cruising through your sub-division vacuum-packed inside your Lexus SUV.

Our days followed the predictable routine of beaches and naps and large meals. Each morning we stopped by our favorite "grocery guy" for fresh bread and other staples. Then we hit our favorite "fruit guy," and, later, the "gelati guy." It was fun to be part of a village that hasn't yet sacrificed itself completely to tourists. Other than the occasional German, it was just us and the locals.

After an idyllic week in the sun my parents had to move on. They squeezed their tiny rental car through Tropea's narrow streets and headed north, back toward Rome to catch their flight. A few hours later, the next shift arrived. Four of Sarah's American friends from her study abroad program in Italy ten years ago had arranged to meet here for a reunion. I was allowed to stick around as the token male, and for the next week I was given small tasks to keep my busy, like killing spiders and unclogging the kitchen sink.

One guy and five girls at a sun-soaked Italian villa. This is exactly the scenario that millions of teenage boys dream about when they fall asleep in 10th grade Algebra. Our rooftop patio had a small wading pool that had acquired a winter's worth of grime and dirt, and there was a vague suggestion that if I cleaned it well and re-filled it the gals would spend the rest of the week doing lots of splashing and giggling in it. I jumped into action, scrubbing and scraping and mopping. I filled it, but it wasn't quite clean enough so I emptied the thing and started all over. Finally, after three long days, it shone and sparkled in the hot sun. I bounded down the stairs into the villa to let the women know it was ready, but they barely looked up from their Cosmo's and their People magazines. My hopes were dashed.

The weather had been fabulously sunny the entire time but a few days ago a windstorm hit, kicking up the surf and closing the beaches. The next morning the wind died down, and apparently the storm had blown away some previously unseen haze, because for the first time we saw a steep island rising sharply out of the ocean just off shore. We looked at the maps and realized that the island was Stromboli, an active volcano and the last in a chain of small islands stretching north from the Sicily. Sure enough, we saw smoke belching from the top of Stromboli and watched as the wind pulled it in a long line across the horizon.

The group wanted to learn how to play poker, so one evening we gave it a go. Everyone pitched in their $5. We used three different kinds of pasta for poker chips. I shuffled the cards. I explained the basic rules and wrote out the order of the poker hands (yes, a flush does beat a straight). We were ready to go.

I soon learned that girls playing poker is a wildly different enterprise than guys playing poker. When guys play, you sit down and you play. You don't leave the table (valid exceptions: beer; bathroom). You don't really talk (valid exceptions: expletives; heckling of opponents). This seems fairly straightforward. When you play poker, you play poker.

Not so! We hadn't even started our first hand when a tune came on the radio that caused several of the women to jump up from the table and break into a dance. When the song was over I managed to reign-in the dancers and get through a deal or two, but then came another interruption to look for chocolate (they had to settle for cookies). Things calmed down a bit after that, but throughout the evening play was suspended mid-hand while conversation drifted off to critical issues like:

• Did Renee Zelwegger sufficiently capture the angst of 30-something singledom in Bridget Jones?
• Does carbonated mineral water really cause kidney damage, as reported in a popular beauty magazine?
• What was the best candle you've ever owned?