Last day of the Orvieto post-trip trip, last post, last meal before I cross the psychic border and my visa into the realm of Traveler-protected events runs out. At that point I’m subject to the laws of a more savage government. For better or worse that’s how I see it. I know, I know, my perceptions create reality and all that, but I’m sorry, after 45 years of experience I still haven’t been able to replicate on my own what happens on these trips. There is some kind of opportunity here that’s not available to me otherwise. I’m talking about the physical level, not the inner, where there are no borders and no visas.

I’m basically an opportunist. I don’t know who’s making these laws or why, but in this world you take the best quality feed that comes down the chute. I suspect that it’s designed like this because if the same set of laws applied to my entire life I would just stay in the bathtub of bliss and wouldn’t do anything.

The last day was another superlative sharing with John in the afternoon. John seemed soft and relaxed and there was a feeling of intimacy in our smaller group (20-or-so instead of 80-or-so for the bulk of the trip) that brought in a sweet tranquility. Then we had a farewell dinner in the evening that included a couple of singing performances and a birthday scoop of gelato for Jsu Garcia, assistant to J-R for many years, who has pretty much established himself in the role of the person with enough emotional freedom to keep everyone’s spirits up and to make sure we’re playing in spite of all the work that’s going on. There always seemed to be laughter wherever he was, on a bus or in a restaurant.

Am I sad that the trip is over? No. On this physical level leaving is my favorite thing to do. At the end of my first PAT training (a basic training/retreat in basic Traveler teachings) I was so far into the Spirit that when someone asked if I was sad about leaving I just laughed, because the idea that you could leave the Spirit seemed absurd. It still does. But I’m more aware of my body now, more aware of where I’m putting it and how much Spirit is there and which god I’m functioning under. So if there’s another trip I’ll go. I vividly remember a Q&A with J-R many years ago where he said something like, “Spirit is everywhere…” and then there was a brief pause, and he said, “more in some places than others.”

But there’s also a part of me that doesn’t want to leave Italy. It’s a place of greater social cohesion than the USA; more cooperation and less competition; stronger families so that there’s less craziness; fewer cell phone zombies; more normal social interaction; more politeness; less violation of what’s pleasurable here and now in order to create an imaginary “better” future. People are more accepting of their humanness, and less burdened by the idea that there is some need to re-create or reform or change the personality. Just go to confession, be forgiven, and go on enjoying life.

That self-acceptance creates room for a kind of innocence, an emotional spontaneity. There are some real characters here. When we arrived in our Rome hotel, a bit tired from a long day of travel from Assisi, we had some problems with our room. An intense, impassioned, kindhearted, extremely solicitous, plump little bellman, who constantly held his hands up near his ears in fists as if he were ready to box anyone or anything to protect us from any discomfort, raced around our room, talking in spurts and circles in broken English and introducing himself with an operatic flourish as “Fabrizio” or “Fantasimo” or something like that. He was more concerned about our problems than we were. All our tiredness left us.

People here don’t hide their feelings much. What you see is what you get, and if you’re kind and/or authentic they can cheer up instantly. Basically they treat you like family—familiarly—which seems to be the most ingrained form of social interaction in this family-oriented country. Waiters and hotel people seem genuinely eager to please—or they just don’t care very much and ignore you, as in families. But either way they’re not stuck in some hidden agenda. And, as in families, there’s less distinction between people’s public and private persona than in the States, where people are more like atomized, competitive points of economic interaction than part of a collective. People in Italy seem less isolated and hence more secure, and hence less interested in putting on a show for others. When we picked up our clothes in a little laundry in Florence they were folding them on the counter, next to the cash register, as customers came and went. That kind of thing is typical.

There’s also a greater reliance in Italy on solid traditions that have worked for centuries. That’s good and bad news. It makes for a more comfortable and functional society, and much better food, but it also creates a feeling of hardened mental tracks that everyone is running on, with less opportunity for deviation into the new and different and creative. So, as always, I go back to the USA regretting the return to lunacy but also looking forward to being liberated from the tracks of tradition. Just as I have to travel between the areas where there’s more and less Spirit in order to experience my wholeness, I seem to have to travel between areas where different sides of the unavoidable dualities of human expression prevail. As J-R often said, “There’s no rest for the wicked and the righteous don’t need it.”

There is however a perfect, dilemma-less heaven on this earth, though: The QC Terme Roma Hotel. It’s an “airport hotel” a mile or two from the Rome airport, but nothing like any airport hotel you’ve ever seen. I found it accidentally a few years ago and just had to come back. It’s comparable in price to your average skyscraper airport hotel with non-opening windows and a gym and the sound of planes overhead—but this is a huge, quiet estate with expansive lawns and tall trees.

It’s actually a big spa complex where everyone walks around in white bathrobes and flip-flops as they do in heaven, and there are acres of outdoor bubbling jacuzzis boiling bathing-suited Italians of various shapes and sizes; warm waterfalls; meditation rooms; anti-gravitation water beds; aromatherapy salons; healing natural makeup sampling rooms; sunbathing beds; relaxation rooms with white wicker swinging chairs that hang from the ceiling where you can twirl while watching soothing nature scenes play on a big flat screen TV; silent rooms for meditation; a pretty straw-hatted, aproned attendant giving out dried fruits and candies; hydrating stations with herbed or fruited water or coffee—just to name a few amenities in this seemingly endless array of healing pools and gardens. And if that’s not enough, there’s a whole barely-lit cavernous underground labyrinth of steam baths, saunas, full immersion showers, hot and cold foot baths and massage rooms, all connected by beautifully tiled floors and walls, and dotted with replicas of ancient Roman sculpture.

We arrived at this hidden paradise on our shuttle from Orvieto, through a gate and down a long straight single-lane road surrounded by 15-foot high immaculately kept hedges, stopped at a rope that isolated the grounds from cars, a uniformed guy took our luggage, and we were ushered into the lobby—not a busy hotel lobby with attendants who look like they’ve been on their feet for hours, but a cheerful, easygoing, athletic-looking guy sitting at a desk in a tan vest and Mark Twain bowtie, who explained the rules about wearing your bathrobe and flip-flops everywhere, and how the happy hour drinks were free. The Girlfriend and I looked at each other and wondered if we were in one of those movies like Albert Brooks’ Defending Your Life, where people have actually died but they don’t know it yet.  After we got settled in our room (upgraded free to a two-floor suite of course) we exited through french doors onto our bowered patio then onto a plush lawn, and walked around the property in a daze like the other slow-motion, white-robed inhabitants who had just been flown in or were waiting to fly out.

It felt like a gift from the Traveler for a mission accomplished, a brief rest for my righteous and/or wicked self. I’ll try to post some photos of this ethereal “airport hotel” before we leave on our flight to the States. If you don’t see any photos it means we really did die and we’re in some kind of astral heaven waiting for the next journey upward. If not, I hope I’ll be on the next trip, enjoying and exploring this strange world’s positive-negative balance, whose permutations are almost as varied and as treacherous as the different bathroom fixtures that we’ve had to master in each new hotel. See you later.

View the Photos by David Sand from Day 18 Last Day Italy 2025