When neighbor Aileen Pressley offered to drive us to the airport for our recent two-week vacation in Italy and Greece, she seemed disappointed that we had already made other arrangements.

"But driving friends to and from the airport is my favorite mode of travel," she explained. "It's rather inexpensive. No stress of planning or packing. No jet lag. On the way in from the airport, my friends describe in detail the highlights and lowlights of their trips, the things they enjoyed, the sights they saw in Switzerland, Paris, Spain.

"So when I get home, I cross those places off my 'Been there, done that' list."

After two weeks of travel -- too many hotels with complex plumbing, too many mountains climbed, too many museums endured, mega "Bags out at 7 a.m." edicts and the overpowering euro versus the dollar -- I concede that Aileen has a point.

Against the euro, the American dollar is as weak as a bottle-fed baby. There is very little "grin and bear it" when shelling out $6.50 for a single scoop of ice cream, $8 if you eat it sitting down. Even this addicted newshound recoils at paying $6 for a copy of the International Herald-Tribune.

Weary of pasta dishes, I once indulged in a $28 hamburger on a bun, only to wake in the night with a severe case of indigestion. It wasn't a bad burger, but the psychological trauma of remembering that, as a lad, I worked from sunup to sundown in summer on a tobacco farm for $15 a month -- half the cost of an Italian hamburger.

Much of the romance is gone from Rome since we visited a decade ago. Even in May, the crowds are crushing, if not smothering, at the Pantheon, the Sistine Chapel and the Trevi Fountain. With one euro equal to almost $2, few tourists were tossing three coins in the fountain as suggested in the song. One coin seemed sufficient.

Even so, about 3,000 euros -- almost $6,000 -- is collected daily from the fountain and used to subsidize a supermarket for the city's needy.

On a cab ride to the Pantheon, our driver, who smelled as if he hadn't bathed since Columbus set sail for America, screeched in and out of traffic along unlined narrow streets and alleys, missing pedestrians by inches. Careening around corners with the skill of a Junior Johnson or Richard Petty, he made "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" at Disney World seem tame indeed.

With gas at $10 a gallon, Italians by the millions travel now via motor bikes, seemingly easy prey to automobiles operated by drivers possessed. The unceasing night and day blaring of emergency vehicle klaxons attests to the high number of biker "road kills," our guide explained.

Pickpockets abound, as prevalent as they were in Charles Dickens' London. The men among us were warned repeatedly to transfer our wallets from the back to the front pocket.

One night during dinner, the restaurant maitre d' drove home that warning by casually handing me my wallet, which he had deftly removed from my buttoned back pocket while I was concentrating on the entree.

Generally, the Italian cuisine was not as tasty as I remembered. At one restaurant, the veal medallion seemed about as succulent as pressed possum a la Surry County. But then I have never been overfond of veal, even less of opossum.

All this is not to say the Italians have totally compromised their reputation as romantics.

The gondoliers still sing love songs as they pull starry-eyed, blue-haired widows up and down the canals of Venice in the twilight. And at one Rome restaurant, after dinner, a handsome balladeer presented each lady present with a red rose and a kiss.

When I asked, "What does your wife say about all these women you kiss?" he replied, "In Italia, we do not tell our wives everything."

As we left the Eternal City, heading for the magical city of Venice, I could almost hear Perry Como crooning that nostalgic 50-year-old classic:

Arrivederci Roma,

It's time for us to part,

Save the wedding bells for my returning,

Keep my lover's arms outstretched and yearning,

Please be sure the flame of love keeps burning,

In her heart!

But somehow, this time, I felt more relief than regret at leaving, only wondering if it is Rome or just me that has changed over the years. Perhaps it's both.

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