Romance amid the ruins

Writing in the New York Daily News, Adam Lisberg says that Vito Fossella's illicit romance with the mother of his love child was a whirlwind affair that began on Malta, a tough, craggy speck of rock in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea , known for its battles and knights:

..But when Vito Fossella arrived here on a military jet five years ago, the married congressman found love. Fossella and a married Air Force colonel, then named Laura Shoaf, were part of a taxpayer-funded congressional junket that hopscotched across Europe, visiting five countries in 10 days. They stopped in Poland and Luxembourg before touching down in Malta on Dec. 6, 2002.

Traveling with then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the delegation was supposed to be studying foreign affairs. Somewhere amid Malta's limestone outcroppings and crashing waves, Vito and Laura were first noticed eying each other. A photograph snapped of Fossella and his love at a bar in Malta shows them standing side by side, smiling gleefully. "They were spending a lot of time together, and they had just met," a source who traveled with them said. ". . . . All of a sudden, they were inseparable."

The trip forever changed their lives and encouraged the brash behavior that finally was exposed when Fossella was arrested for drunken driving near Fay's Virginia home a little more than a week ago...Word about the affair spread, and Republican officials soon became concerned, fearing it would be exposed, sources said.

..Malta is not an obvious place for a love affair to flourish. Not unlike Staten Island, it tends to be a conservative place. It's a predominantly Catholic country where churches are the biggest monuments, more than half the populace attends Mass on Sunday and divorce is illegal.

Crowds of tourists mill through the narrow streets of the old city of Valletta, snapping photos of landmarks - including the Auberge de Castille, where then-Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami greeted Fossella and Fay's delegation in 2002.

The rocky hills are studded with military relics, and while other spots on the island have their share of ocean vistas and quiet lagoons, no one would call its capital city sexy."I don't think it's the kind of place you would come to for romance," said Vivian O'Boyle, a British tourist visiting Malta with her her husband, Paddy. "It's more for history."