During a coach tour, Rosalba, a forty-year-old housewife, is "forgotten" and left behind in a motorway service area. Her husband Mimmo and her sons notice her absence only after a while. This unexpected event triggers a strong desire within Rosalba's soul: she wants to escape from everyday's routine and decides, there and then, to go to Venice for a few days. After all, her family can wait. As soon as she arrives, she phones home, in Pescara, but the way her husband treats her induces her to stay in Venice longer than planned. Mimmo decides to send a detective after his wife: plumber Costantino. Meanwhile, Rosalba has found a job as assistant in the florist shop of nostalgic anarchist Natale and has also met a new friend: peculiar waiter Fernando, a lonesome of lcelandic origins who's fond of "Orlando Furioso". Rosalba hears her youngest son is having drug problems, therefore, she goes back to Pescara. But when she arrives at home she discovers those problems are not as serious as she was told. Thus she has finally returned to her dreamless life. However, as Femando watches the last petal falling from the tulips left by Rosalba, he decides to "go down to Abruzzi" and bring the woman back...