I Got You Babe...

Buongiorno, Zdravo, Empros, ¡Hola, Boozju, and Hello!


After much thought, of how to go about sharing our incredible trip, I thought it best to share in one thread.
Some of you know, this trip was in honor of our 25th Wedding Anniversary. We Celebrated, April 12, 2010.
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A little over a year ago, we sat with our calendar, watching it fill as quickly with all the different events celebrations we decided, as it was our 25th Wedding anniversary, we should go on a trip. Days, turned into weeks and we began to get busy with the here and now.

One evening, Steve asked me in a very serious tone, What do you think about going to Hawaii? He didn’t hesitate long enough for me to respond, rubbing his face as he does while deep in thought, he says “or” would you prefer a Mediterranean Cruise to Europe?”
Immediately my eyebrows raise, Europe? Are you kidding??

He continues on, to explain the variety of Cruises he was secretly checking into…I just knew he was up to something so early in the morning, sneaking time on the computer, pretending at times to be working.

And so he says with a wide smile, Yes, we enjoyed our first cruise so much, I was thinking we might enjoy another. After he explained the cruise details of the one he was checking into. Laughing, I said OMG! Lets do the cruise, Seriously, I didn’t think it was questionable...

We chose a Cruise that would take us to Rome for a day. I was excited, that wow, we were actually going to see Rome, the cruise had also other excursions, one was to visit France, and some other Areas. I didn’t care where we went, all I knew, we were going to Europe.

I do want to go to Hawaii some time, however I wasn’t sure we would ever be able to visit Europe.
As the time was increasingly passing, Steve did all of the research, and at this time the opportunity was definitely on our side. Each morning he would arise, grab his cup of coffee and search the internet.
Now, I don’t usually interrupt what’s jumping around his mind because over the years I’ve learned until he says it’s written in stone, he isn’t finished making up his mind, LOL.

One day, not too many days after, He says, “you know, I’ve been thinking about the trip.” “Ok” I say, just knowing he has changed his mind. I wait not so calmly and while he rubs his chin again , finding the words that will per sway my mind of thinking.

Ok, hands on my hips, I ask, “So…What’s up already?” He begins with a hearty chuckle and informs me that it wouldn’t make any sense for us to take a trip to Italy only to see Rome for one afternoon. He then asked how about if we take a slightly different cruise and add a week to see Italy. As his words sink into my mind, a smile ear to ear across my face, I jump for joy and wholehearted, agree. All I could think was OH MY GOD, We are going to Italy! He had already done the research. Found a cool cruise and with his miles, was able to secure the first night at a hotel in Venice. He had found a flight aboard Swiss Airline, that we had to book one year in advance.

Ahhh, but What about the kids? We reminded them that it was our 25th anniversary and we were thinking we wanted to go on this trip. They were all for it. They thought it was so romantic that we are still in love enough to go on such an extensive trip. And so with their blessings we booked the flight and began more research.

We began telling our family, friends and anyone else who would listen of our plans to Italy!

The year seemed to pass with rapid speed and it was time to adjust all finalize ideas and adjust to the thought of leaving our 3 kids behind. Really I was ok with the thought, as they are all of an age to take care of themselves. All the activities kept them busy and we couldn't stress enough what we expected of them. They couldn't wait till the trip was underway!

On April 3rd, I awoke at the crack of dawn! LOL, I was a little excited. Well this was going to be a very long day, but we filled the time with all the last minute paper work and handled other things. With it being Easter Weekend, We colored some Easter eggs. The kids planned a nice Dinner with their Grandma and Aunti.

I was packed and ready to go, however our flight was not until 7:10 P.M. We finally loaded the car about 5. Julia, Sabrina and Jacob drove us to the airport. On the way there, Liz, my good friend and travel buddy texted away. All of the sudden Steve remembers his phone, so we had to turn around to retrieve it! Finally,we hugged and kissed and hugged our kids some more. As they drove away, They were cheering and yelling "We're Free" shaking my head, I said a silent prayer to keep them safe and for them to just behave.

We were on our way...

We had a very nice dinner in flight. What was also neat, they had GPS system so we could follow along the flight. I thought this was pretty cool! About an hour into the flight, Captain came on loud speaker announcing we we doing well and that we were just flying over Victoria Harbour!! Betty, I was justa hooten and hollering Hello Betty! I tried very hard to catch a movie, but kept hitting them while they were in the middle so, with nothing else to do, I fell in and out of sleep. Steve dozed off pretty quick too. We were glad the flight was late just so we could sleep the time away. When we awoke, it was morning. We landed in Munich, Switzerland right on time. There, we received our first Stamp in our passports. We got a cup of coffee. ROFLOL, if you can call it a cup, we giggled away at the size of the cup which to us was more like a thimble, but oh boy, the thimble was packed with a mighty punch!
We proceed to roam around the Airport. As all airports are, it had loads of little stores. We tried some Swiss Chocolates and enjoyed see all the Chocolate art!

An hour and half later we were shuttled to our adjoining flight. This plane would take us to our Destination, Venice, italy.

This message was edited Apr 30, 2010 10:00 AM

A little glimps of Switzerland from the air.

ohhhh I'm here to watch the photo show...

Me too!

Me, three!!!

This message was edited Apr 30, 2010 9:08 AM

Hi Betty! LOL, waiving this time from computer...

We arrived in Venice right on time, the Flight was very smooth.
OMG, talk about timing, we seemed to be on a good streak of luck.

Now, Our traveling did not stop, I laugh as I recalled the movie, Trains, plains and automobiles.
This was the way of our first day. After retrieving our luggage. We found we had to catch a bus to the train station to take us to the Island.
Once we arrived on the island we then had to take a water bus to take us to the stop where our hotel was located. LOL, it was quite the adventure, we got real lucky and caught every transportation within minutes.
We got a map of the island at the train station. Now, my gosh that helped very little. Venice is the greatest labyrinth I have ever had the privilege to roam through. We were turned turned around and lost for a time. We then figured out the alley ways names were up high printed on the buildings. LOL, never in my dreams did I think to look up and the names were not in full! They were just the main word.

It was now after 5 in the evening. many of the vendors were closed as it was Easter Sunday. We freshend up and went for a stroll around to find anything open for dinner. We were starving.

To our delight, a little Trattoria was still open and we sat along a Channel for our first meal in Venice.
We were not dissapointed. We enjoyed a wonderful meal, Sea bass, a side of speggetti and salad and Wine.

Hi Fruit of the Vine and Celia!!
Thanks for joining my journey.

We learned quite a bit from Our Waiter. He spoke some English so Steve bombarded the poor man with questions.
But we found out how the island sort of ran. The most important lesson we learned, Go to the Big Sites as soon as they open.
This way we beat the crowds. Venice does not start to come alive until about 10:00 AM...

Now this being the only night we were to spend in Venice, After dinner we were approached by a very nice Gondola Guy. Ohhh, and he was quite handsome too! Said we were the last customers out so he would give us a deal! So we agreed, lol what a line, it still cost us 60 euros' for a 45 minute ride. We didn't care we had to experience a gondola ride.

It was a lovely ride through the back channels. Since we were the last customers, there were no other boats or gondolas around. We really enjoyed the peacefulness.

Our Gondola driver was not the handsome young guy, lol he was just the one to sell the last ride!
William was out rider. Nice man, spoke a little English and told us of some of the sites.

At every hour the Bells ring and Venice comes alive with bell music! That was really very neat. There are over 300 churches on the Island alone. Only 76 remain in operation.

As night set in, we enjoyed the scenes of the channels. Was a little hard for photos but we took a few.

In the last picture you see one of the many bridge that cross the channel. Not one bridge is the same, they are mostly made of stone and most all of them were very ornate.

The next few photos are from the ride. You can see that even in the darkening skies, the channels were very pretty.

...a scene

Judy, you are a great narator (?)

We really enjoyed seeing the architecture of the buildings.
And were excited to see them in the daylight...

I'm here!!
Woooohooooo Judy!! You and Steve are a beautiful couple.
Yep, she's a good narrator Betty. She can write a book anytime!!

Thank you Betty!

Just before it started turning dark, William was nice to take a few photos of Steve and I.
little blushing here, he caught us stealing a kiss. LOL, you just have to have a little romance on a gondola ride right?

Of course, of course... it's all about Amore!!

Yayy..Hi Jaye, glad to see you!

After our ride, we walked around. The Square was just starting to quiet down.
We decided to venture further out and see what was still open, to our surprise, for being late in the evening there was a section that was still quite very busy. We found a small pizzaria and have a few drinks. Steve enjoyed the wine while I induldged in Italian Berria.

We had loads of fun there. It was wonderful to just sit! We had walked what seems to have been miles. We were beat, but we also wanted to stay awake in order to get on Italy's time zone. it's a 9 hour difference.

That first evening it began to rain. This did not stop us from our trekk. We were well prepared for any kind of weather.
It was very windy on the island, and the chill in the air was pretty brisk...Everyone was wearing a scarf, so this was my first purchase!
It was probably the best thing I bought, it served as not only a neck warmer, I used it as a belt, and it even held my water bottle at time.

By the time were returned to the hotel, we were exhausted. Decided the next day was to be very busy, so we packed our bags and went to bed.

The next morning, Steve went to a little corner Bar and brought back a couple of cups of caffe! Again we laughed.

This message was edited Apr 30, 2010 11:45 AM

We had t check out of our Hotel by 10:00 Am.M. They were very nice to allow us to leave our luggage for the day.

The evening before we had roamed around the Square. We were entranced by the enormity of it.
Now seeing it in daylight, blew our minds!
This photo, doesn't really do St. Marks square justice, however we certainly enjoyed our time their.
The fact that we had to leave Venice, we pretty much stayed in close proximity of St. Marks Square.

We waited in a very long line to see Dodge Palace...Even as early as 9:00 we still had an hours wait to enter.
OMG, The Dodge was well worth the wait! We were not allowed to take photo's, but we and others did until caught! lol,..

You see the crowds of people? There were 2 different lines going on. The building you see to the right is Dodge Palace.
It does go to the full length that you see. The Building you see straight back is St. Marks cathedral. Both very impressive.

While we waited. Both Steve and I took advantage of the time to take photo's.
He took film with the camcorder while I used the digitals.

LOL, we took 2 digital camera's and the new camcorder/camera. Between the two of us, we took well over 1200 photos and about 8 hours of film...

Much of what we've seen, reminded me of friends all over Dave's garden. Whether it was structure, flower's or Aprons!!
Jaye, lol, thought if you immediately upon seeing these.

The brick work on the Dodge was really neat! I thought wow, wouldn't that make a pretty quilt.

I really loved the lamp posts too.

oooh so nice to see 'old folk' LOL/LOL smooching...

Judy, I hope it's the spaghetti apron that you linked me to ;)
Lolol!! Kel will get too many ideas with that naughty lingerie one!!

Watching people was interesting. I found that everyone is one is big giant hurry.
This drove me bonkers..but it was really pretty cool to hear all the different languages.
I think we counted 7-8 languages.

here is a scene a portion of the Grande Canal.

ROFLOL, Jaye, Steve wanted to go back and buy an apron. We didn't though, funny we didn't see them again.

We wondered about these stacked piers and asked one of the vendors what the purpose was.
They are used in the rainy season in March. The canal floods over and they put these wooden walk ways to get around.
Can't even imagine that time, yikes as busy as it is, can you just picture all the people on those narrow walk boards?

Finally, the line moved up and our wait was almost over.
This is the ceiling lines of outside hallway entrance to the Palace.

Once we were able to enter the palace, They have a small museum right at the beginning.

Dodge was a very wealthy man. and he wanted the best of everything.

This Palace is Centuries old and much of it was sinking.

Beautiful craftsmanship...

In this one room, you can see all the pillars sinking in the earth.
See how wonderfully carved they are? And that is just a tease.

Now you see in the back there, There is a head. All over Venice building have heads on them.
If a person had a head on their dwelling this showed Prestige and wealth. So Dodge was inclined to have many.

Isn't it though. We were Blown away with all the stone work.

Now we enter the Court yard. here we were able to take all the photo's we wanted, and so we did!
LOL, we have not gotten to the Palace yet.

Beautiful...............

Judy, that must be the 12 apostles on top of the taller spires?

This leads up to the Palace. They had it roped off.
But wow, we couldn't get over the Beauty of all the Statues.

Here is the Grande Staircase.

This message was edited Apr 30, 2010 12:56 PM

I think you are right Jaye, Their really wasn't much literature.

This statue on the right is suppose to be Moses. And I am not sure who the other is.

And the Lion!
The Lion is St Marks Protector.

A corner of the Palace.

I love this as it is just so intricately carved.

Steve was flabbergasted at the work. It is not very often that he asks me to photo him.
But he wanted his picture taken with this beautiful work in the back ground.