What could possibly happen when a group of naïve Americans, from a small Southern town, tour Italy as a group? Tour organizer, Carl Minton has his hands full as his forty-four clients negotiate cultural differences, interpret Italian through their Southern dialect, and encounter unexpected manners, during a tour that includes Rome, Tuscany, and Venice. To complicate matters, Carl and the handsome tour guide, Francois, fall in love, steal every opportunity to be alone together. Through drunkenness, obstinance and indolence, pick-pocketing, general forgetfulness, and, of course, shop-lifting. Carl's trials are as exasperating as anything in a Kafka novel, but full of laughs on every page. Carl manages, in spite of his trials, to appreciate the magnificent Italian countryside and the experience of love and friendship.