CNN –
Bianca Gignac swam under the stars, against a backdrop of colorful cliffside houses, with a complete stranger, her clothes in a heap on a rock.
Bianca was in the harbor of Riomaggiore, the southernmost of the five picturesque fishing villages in Italy's Cinque Terre region. It is built into the rocks overlooking the Ligurian Sea and offers spectacular views.
“The Cinque Terre is unlike anything you’ve experienced before,” Bianca tells CNN Travel today. “It's like a dream. Something you'll never understand until you're there. It's truly a must-see place.”
Bianca had arrived in Riomaggiore, fallen in love with the beauty of the city and now found herself – somehow – swimming – without clothes – with a man she had just met. The two strangers laughed, splashed each other and soaked up the moment.
“We swam in phosphorescent light, under the stars,” Bianca remembers. “It was a perfect evening on July 26th.”
More specifically, it was July 26, 2003. Bianca was a Canadian student in her mid-20s, spending the summer in Italy. She studied fine arts and a scholarship from the Italian Cultural Institute of Vancouver took her to Florence – the fulfillment of a lifelong dream of visiting Europe.
When Bianca arrived in Florence, she was grieving a failed relationship. Slowly and surely, Italy had won her over and helped her rebuild her self-confidence.
“I had the most incredible summer, I really found my footing,” says Bianca.
“Then, three days before I went home, my friend said, 'Let's go to the Cinque Terre.' It's the most romantic place I've ever been. And so we went there for the weekend. And within a few hours I met him.'”
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
“He” was Bianca’s nighttime swimming companion — Alessandro Morelli, a twenty-something from La Spezia, the closest town to the Cinque Terre, a 10-minute train ride from Riomaggiore.
“I had a permanent job at the local shipyard,” Alessandro tells CNN Travel. It was a job that everyone assumed he would do throughout his life – generally his life was “stable” and “routine”.
Alessandro was in Riomaggiore on July 26th for a friend's birthday party. The plan was to gather on the beach to celebrate and enjoy the long summer night. Alessandro was walking through the village with a friend when they decided to take a detour to one of the outdoor bars built into the cliffs.
Alessandro and Bianca met for the first time in this bar.
The connection was “plain and simple,” says Alessandro. He couldn't stop looking at Bianca.
“The red hair – she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen,” Alessandro remembers.
He told his girlfriend that he would go and talk to her. Then Alessandro got up, went to Bianca's table and asked if he could buy Bianca and her friend a drink.
The moment Alessandro walked up to her table, Bianca felt an “instant connection.”
“What struck me was that he was very friendly. He wasn’t arrogant,” she says. “He was a friendly person and I could feel that.”
Bianca asked Alessandro if he would like to sit with them. Then his friend also pulled up a chair.
“We just started talking,” says Bianca – they spoke in English because Bianca’s Italian wasn’t that good at the time.
“So there were four of us. And we literally talked into the night,” she remembers. “We were in this little bar that is still there today, 20 years later – it looks out over the little boats bobbing in the harbor. It’s super picturesque.”
Artie Photography/Moment RF/Getty Images
Bianca met Alessandro in the pictured village of Riomaggiore, part of the Cinque Terre.
The group stayed until closing. They then walked down to the harbor and greeted the birthday party guests.
Then Alessandro suggested a nighttime bath: “Let’s go swimming,” he said to Bianca.
“I won’t go swimming in these waters,” Bianca said skeptically. It was pitch black, the sea was dark and the water and rocks were only illuminated by starlight.
But Alessandro convinced Bianca – in his presence she felt safe, free, happy.
“So we went skinny dipping,” Bianca remembers.
It was a happy end to the evening. Later, in the early hours of the morning, Bianca and her friend returned to their rented room, tired but happy.
Then, just a few hours later, the sun streamed through the window and there was a knock on the door.
“I thought, ‘What’s going on? Who is that?'” Bianca remembers.
She hesitantly opened the door and there stood Alessandro and his friend from the night before, grinning.
“These guys were there with their trunks, their bags, their sunscreen, saying, 'Girls, let's go on a boat ride.'”
It was July 27th – Bianca’s birthday. She had mentioned the significance of the date the night before, and Alessandro thought a boat trip would be the perfect way to celebrate.
Alessandro's friend was from Riomaggiore and owned a boat – “one of the fishing boats that bobbed up and down in the marina”. So the group spent the day drifting through the villages of the Cinque Terre, admiring the green hills and houses scattered among the cliffs, sunbathing and exploring the area. It was a magical birthday.
Bianca and Alessandro were inseparable for the rest of the weekend.
“We simply experienced the typical Italian summer. Go to the beach, go for pizza – go for walks,” says Bianca. “The boys just knocked on our door every day and got us out. And we kept saying yes.”
The four of them – Bianca and her friend and Alessandro and his friend – all got along well.
“It seemed incredibly normal and pleasant and we were all just having a great time and it was very relaxed – almost like we had been friends for a long time,” says Bianca.
Bianca Gignac
Alessandro and Bianca, shortly after they met in Italy.
Bianca and her friend were just in Riomaggiore for a long weekend. She had booked a midnight train to Rome the next week that would take her to the airport and back to Canada, ending her Italian summer.
After three days with Alessandro, Bianca didn't want to leave, but she thought she had no choice.
“I packed my bag. “I left Italy for good,” she says.
Before heading to the station, Bianca went out for her last dinner with Alessandro, “three steps away from our meeting point while waiting for the train to arrive at the station.”
Bianca's bag was at her feet. She had left her accommodation. All signs pointed to her leaving. But neither Bianca nor Alessandro could accept that this was a farewell.
“Bianca, don’t go,” Alessandro said when it was time for her to make her way to the train station.
“I have to,” Bianca said. “I have a job, I have college.”
But Bianca made no move to move. Something inside her knew: She wouldn't go.
So Bianca missed her train. She missed the flight. It was out of character, but it was exciting. It felt like the right decision.
With Alessandro in tow, Bianca returned to her vacation rental and asked the owner if she could extend the trip – back then the Cinque Terre wasn't as busy as it is today, so it was a potentially feasible request. The owner, who knew Alessandro, just looked at the two and “laughed and laughed.”
“It’s a small village,” says Bianca. “He patted Alessandro on the shoulder and gave him the keys.”
Over the next 10 days, Bianca and Alessandro grew even closer.
“We didn’t try hard or force anything. It was natural and we spent every minute together for a week,” says Bianca. “He even took me to his mother Paola almost immediately. I was just sitting in her kitchen and she was so sweet. She fed me, of course.”
Alessandro also took Bianca on mountain rides around the Cinque Terre on the back of his scooter. They spent long days together, exploring and talking.
“And then I actually went there,” says Bianca. “When we said goodbye at the train station, I cried. I thought, 'I'll never see you again.' And I truly believed that there was no idea that I would ever see him again.”
Back in Canada, Bianca concentrated on her studies. She was entering her final year of college and her goal was to graduate. She tried to put Alessandro out of her mind. But before she left Italy, they exchanged contact details.
And while Bianca assumed they would never see each other again, Alessandro was sure it was meant to be. He tried to stay in touch.
“I started calling her and we talked on the phone,” he says.
These conversations became more and more regular.
And then, with Christmas around the corner, Alessandro suggested that Bianca return to Italy and stay with him for the holidays.
“I have school,” Bianca said. “And I have no money to go to Italy”
“I have a solid job,” said Alessandro. “I’ll buy your plane ticket.”
The thought of seeing Alessandro again, of being back in Italy, was almost overwhelming for Bianca. In the months they had been apart, she had dreamed of nighttime swimming in Riomaggiore, of their long days exploring together, and of evenings in cliffside restaurants. She decided to give it a try.
“Okay, I’m coming,” Bianca said to Alessandro on the phone.
When Bianca told her college friends her plans, they were in disbelief. Some didn't think it would last.
But a friend persisted. “He bought you a plane ticket? You will marry him and have children.”
“I don’t think so,” said Bianca. “But let’s see.”
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
Bianca spent the holidays with Alessandro and his extended family in La Spezia. The trip lasted just over a week, but when Bianca returned to Canada in early 2004, she and Alessandro had a goal: When Bianca graduated from college, she would return to Italy.
“So that was our plan. Then for me it was just a matter of going home, completing my final work and getting my degree,” says Bianca.
This summer, Alessandro came to Canada to celebrate Bianca's graduation and meet her family. Then, right after graduating, Bianca moved to Italy. It was exciting but a little surreal. And for Bianca – who still didn't speak much Italian – it was a big step.
One of Alessandro's friends told him he thought Bianca would last “two weeks.” But it quickly became apparent that he was wrong. Bianca stayed a month, then two, and then…
“Within three months of living together, we got married,” says Bianca.
It was a rather spontaneous decision. “We were young and stupid,” Bianca says today, laughing.
But it also felt like absolutely the right decision. Bianca and Alessandro were in love and wanted to spend their lives together.
Bianca called her parents in Canada to tell them the news.
“I called my family and said, 'I'm getting married. In three weeks. I'm so sorry to do this to you. I know it's hard to hear that I'm getting married in three weeks. But I’ll do it,” Bianca remembers.
Her loved ones were a little surprised but supportive.
“Even if we had been having these long-distance conversations for a while, we had been together for so long that people understood that it was very serious,” she says.
“We just ran to town hall. We got married on a Friday, had the day off work, and arrived wearing clothes we already owned. I went to the flower shop across the street, got some gypsophila and put it behind my hair.”
Alessandro's friend – the one who had been there the night the couple met in Riomaggiore – translated the wedding service from Italian to English for Bianca. Alessandro's family was also present and toasted their future.
Bianca Gignac
Bianca and Alessandro on a trip back to Italy.
Bianca and Alessandro lived and worked in Italy for the next two years, including a stint with Alessandro's mother in her home. Bianca had been hesitant to move in, but with everyone under one roof, she was able to form a real bond with Alessandro's loved ones.
“His whole family lived there. His aunt lived upstairs. His uncle used to live on the ground floor; it was the family house that his grandfather had built. For someone like me, it was just an incredible experience to immerse myself in this whole culture and become part of his life,” says Bianca.
Bianca and Alessandro also lived together in an apartment for a time. During this time, they lived in the moment and “simply enjoyed the now,” as Alessandro puts it.
But they also learned a lesson that became essential to their relationship as they navigated cultural differences and the first months of married life.
“When you're in a relationship, you have to be extremely patient,” says Alessandro. “Even more so when someone comes from a different culture.”
“Patience and understanding is what you have to have as a couple anyway,” agrees Bianca. “When you’re in an international relationship, you need a lot more compassion and understanding.”
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
Bianca worked in a gelateria, which she says was “very stressful,” but which she credits as the reason she eventually perfected Italian. Over time she was able to speak the language fluently and got used to life in La Spezia.
But after two years, Bianca and Alessandro were ready for a change. They moved to Canada, to Vancouver Island, where Bianca's family lived.
This marked the beginning of a new chapter in her life.
“We bought a house and within a month I was pregnant,” says Bianca. “We ended up building a life in Canada and having our daughter.”
While she was busy reacquainting herself with Canada, caring for a newborn and then a toddler, an idea began to permeate Bianca's mind.
Over time, this idea grew into a business: Italian Fix – a Canada-based travel company offering specialized Italian small group tours, with the aim of giving visitors a taste of Italy as the locals live it.
The company was inspired by Bianca’s “knowledge from life in Italy and the lifestyle that I learned to love and be a part of,” as she explains it.
Her company's first trip was, of course, to the Cinque Terre.
“I got my first group of nine guests and introduced them to all the people I had met there, all my connections that I had made over the course of two years, and I just said, 'Welcome to my world, and here it is her.'” “Live in the Cinque Terre for a week,” Bianca remembers.
“That was the beginning and the nucleus of the company that I have been running for 12 years now.”
Alessandro was “happy and excited” to put down roots in Canada. He got a good job as an engineer and concentrated on co-parenting with Bianca.
While Alessandro noted that there are “many differences” between Italy and Canada, he found them “mostly positive.”
He also often accompanied Bianca on her trips to Italy. The couple would also take their daughter with them and spend time with their Italian family.
Stefano Butturini
Alessandro and Bianca have been together for over 20 years.
Bianca and Alessandro's shared commitment to prioritizing work, family and travel became the cornerstone of their family life.
“Even though we grew up in different countries, we have the same worldview. And the same worldview is: work hard, say yes to opportunities, not give up on yourself and your dreams and see what an incredible life you can build together,” says Bianca.
“That's one of the values we tell our daughter: 'Don't miss opportunities.' If someone gives you an opportunity, say ‘yes.’ Because that’s exactly how we’ve lived our lives.”
Since then, the family has lived in Canada, apart from a year in Costa Rica.
“Everything really opens up when you move to one country – moving to another country doesn’t seem so daunting,” says Bianca. “We had an amazing year on a white sandy beach and it was one of the best experiences.”
Bianca and Alessandro's daughter is now a teenager. Bianca and Alessandro still take her to Italy whenever they can.
“She has been to most corners of Italy and speaks Italian,” says Bianca. “We have so much affection for Italy, we have so many friends there. Half of our friends and half of our great family memories are in Italy – the other half is in Canada and the other half is in Italy because we really lived that international family life by living in two places.”
Of course, the Cinque Terre will always hold a special place in Bianca and Alessandro's hearts.
“It's not a magical place where we go and relive our original connection,” says Alessandro. “It's just a home. It’s home number two.”
Looking back on their 20 years together, Alessandro and Bianca say they are “grateful and proud.”
Over the course of two decades, “the relationship has evolved in a million ways,” says Alessandro.
“But the core of who we were – two young people who wanted a great life and had the courage to say 'yes' – are actually the same people,” he says.
The couple is always looking to the future and potential exciting opportunities – professional, travel-related, family-related. They pride themselves on trusting their instincts and going head first into what feels right, just like they did during their July 2003 romance.
“All the things we have built, all the things we have, are thanks to us jumping on the bandwagon that was passing by,” says Alessandro. “Over the 20 years we were together, that was actually a lesson to me: never miss a train or it might not pass again.”
“Or miss the train,” says Bianca, laughing. “Because then you can stay, like me.”