They fell in love on vacation but went their separate ways. Four years later, she sent him an email: 'Remember me?'

Gabriella Vagnoli and Dan Watling bonded in Scotland in 2002, but lost touch not long after. Four years later, Gabriella’s name popped up in Dan’s email inbox.

Gabriella Vagnoli never forgot that trip to Scotland.

She tried not to think about it, to “remove that chapter completely.” She’d known Dan Watling for only a few days. He lived in the U.S. She figured she’d never see him again.

But as her long-term relationship in Italy started to dwindle, Gabriella’s mind returned to how it felt walking around Loch Ness with Dan in the spring of 2002. She thought about his eyes, “very blue, beautiful, striking.” She remembered the way they’d sat together, on the mountainous Old Man of Storr, looking out over the Isle of Skye, sharing stories about their lives.

It was mid-2006 when Gabriella finally typed Dan’s name into Google. Social media was pretty new at the time. She wasn’t sure anything would come up. She’d convinced herself Dan would have long moved on. They weren’t 22 anymore.

“I was just like, ‘Oh I’m just going to see – because by now he’s probably married – Americans marry early. Who knows what he’s doing,” Gabriella recalls to CNN Travel.

To her surprise, Dan popped up right away. Photos of him on a three-month trip around Europe a couple of years earlier.

“He looked different, more rugged, more experienced,” says Gabriella.