40 Years!

This is a repeat of a post our daughter put on Facebook. If you are on Facebook, sorry for the redundancy.

I was in Venice last fall with some friends while Randy was in NY hunting. When Randy and I were thinking about how to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary we thought we would head to Venice for a weekend so Randy could get to know this beautiful Italian city.

Our trip started by sitting in the Tirana airport for seven hours. 😦 We have used a few discount airlines since moving here because they offer such inexpensive flights. The downside is that these airlines are not good with communication and the flight times frequently change by several hours with limited notifications.

The next day Randy toured St. Mark’s Basilica while I wandered the narrow gorgeous walkways and canals of the city.

This is where we ate lunch. It was our favorite meal for the weekend, yum!

That afternoon we cruised down the Grand Canal, the biggest and busiest canal in Venice. As we cruised along we listened to one of Rick Steve’s free audio tours. A shout out to my friend, Ann, for introducing us many years ago to travel books and audio tours by Rick Steves. We have followed his advice frequently and never been disappointed.

Since it was our 40th anniversary we decided to splurge and go on a 30 minute gondola ride. It is as touristy as you have probably heard but we throughly enjoyed the experience.

The next day the Grand Canal was closed which severely limited our transportation possibilities. The Grand Canal closes one day a year for a boat race. There was every imaginable kind of boat in the water and it really was fun to watch all of them pass by.

We visited the Peggy Guggenheim Museum which is housed in the home (along the Grand Canal) where the heiress lived for 30 years. Her collection is full of modern art which was so unusual and interesting to see.

It was a quick, short getaway that was a wonderful way to celebrate 40 years together!