Pearl Wedding Anniversary Celebrations including Venice.

February can be considered a dreary month, in the depths of winter for many, but for us we always have a lovely time, celebrating! This year has been extra special as Jerry and I celebrated our Pearl Wedding Anniversary, amazingly 30 years of marriage.

14th February 1987

We celebrated with our boys for the day, enjoying a family day together. The trip started on the top of the Park and Ride Bus, always an exciting treat when Dylan is with us, taking ourselves off to Norwich Castle to explore. Indulging in a few hours of Roman adventure, travelling through the history of the Roman Empire in 20 mins focused on the young audience, wholly enjoyed by the adults heckling the expected participation. Then learned how to become a Roman solider, practicing soldier activities, Milo was an absolute sport as his younger brother volunteered him to join in too. It was delightfully amusing to watch and cheer. We finished with a walk around the Castle overlooking the city sky-line of roof tops, Cathedral spires looking down upon the weaving streets and splatter of market colour. Our route to The Assembly House for Afternoon Tea incorporated a stop for Dylan to spend his Christmas book vouchers and he chose a keyboard book, to serenade us!!

Afternoon Tea in The Assembly House was a delightfully chic gentile experience. Selecting a tea was a new experience for our boys as Milo doesn’t drink hot drinks, so they both looked pretty estranged with teapots. Tiered cake stands of dainty sandwiches, scones and variety of taster bite size cakes, filled us all. Our day ended relaxing washed down with champagne.

I was gifted with a beautiful string of golden antique pearls from Jerry and a bouquet of flowers from our boys.

A really lovely day was a great starter as the following week Jerry and I treated ourselves to a trip to Venice.

The trip was like a fairy-tale. In that the experience was so diverse, such an interesting city and an enchanting way of life to observe. Before you ask – Yep! One of my Ryanair jaunts and accommodation through Booking.com. We went to La Villeggiatura a fabulous B&B in San Palo region of Venice, just 5 mins walk from the Rialto Bridge with a personal service – second to none and highly recommend.

The flight goes into Treviso airport being 70 mins from Venice, supported by an extremely easy public service getting us to the end of the road, at Venice Bus Station inclusive of tram station, train station and last of the car parks. Then the real adventure started as transport is either foot or water. To experience a week of no motor vehicles at all not even bicycles, was rather surreal and best described as ‘wacky’. Life at all levels and requirements is delivered by water transport, described as follows

• Giant barges as buses, bulk deliveries as everything lorries would deliver,
• Smaller motor boats as white van deliveries, taxis, police and ambulance vehicles
• then everywhere was gondoliers wholly for pleasure.

One of our favourite pastimes was to stand at the top of the Rialto Bridge and watch the ‘ballet of boats’ on the Grand Canal. It was an awesome sight to gaze upon the skills of skipper negotiation as barges were manoeuvred with such grace and smaller boats reflected the respect of space and the gondoliers weaved through the middle, round the edges, and no incident occurred. It was awe-inspiring and through the whole week an interesting reality-check of the realisation no motor vehicles or bicycles were taking precedence over our space, with a noticeable impact of less noise pollution and fresher air.

Without realising we had gone to Venice right in the middle of carnival week, which took the whole holiday to an off-the-wall level of ‘wackiness’. The carnival we watched was based in Piazza San Marco whilst infiltrating across the whole of Venice and associated islands. The masquerading of people dressed in exquisite costume adorned with masks with the sole purpose to parade and display like a peacock, was most entertaining. No money was requested with the expectation to be stopped and photographed. Quite bizarre, flamboyant and again ‘wacky’!

We spent our week wandering all areas of the city enjoying the atmosphere as we were drenched in culture. Navigating through the tiniest of streets, weaving through endless turns tripping over bridges to fall into a square of locals busy in activity, inviting to rest for coffee and cake or wine and munchies. One of the memorable afternoons was when we spent significant time walking the Castello region visiting the Arsenal enjoying the naval museum which sported some of the eldest shipping vehicles. We were completely astonished by the sight of an ancient gondolier in gold used by the Pope of the time, it really had the ‘Wow’ factor. After a long walk further into the residential area of the region, finding our way back we stumbled into a square adorned with a beautiful marble church, gondoliers floating past and café bar. The locals were passing through as we sipped our wine on a bright afternoon watching the world go by.

The most striking views of Venice we were able to capture were from the top of the Campanile Bell Tower in Piazza San Marco at an impressive 60 meters high, fortunately a lift to the top and avoided the ringing of the bells, close enough to touch. The views were phenomenal looking across an undulating skyline of roof tops, out to sea to islands with bright blue sky and sea. Looking down upon the Doges Palace and Basilica di San Marco, the utterly beautiful church beside the palace, with ornate paintings inside and outside the building. It was quite a view to watch the carnival from such a distance too.

Another day we guided through San Polo to Dorsoduro region which is the more industrial side to Venice and where the big cruise ships come in, looking across to Piazza San Marco. The route took us passed the Leonardo Da Vinci museum describing both works of art and experiments as working and manual models, really interesting to peruse.

A day was spent wandering the islands via water bus. Everybody told us a ‘must’ was to visit Murano particularly for the glass sculpturing. It was no doubt an interesting experience, if nothing else for the sheer lack of Health & Safety in the glass factories entertained us. As the work men wandered around their work area with tremendously hot molten glass with no protection and performed to the audience. We have purchased a couple of authentic artisan glasses signed by the artist as our holiday gift and they are beautifully decorated and easy to drink from. Once you have been in half a dozen glassware shops the selection of Murano glass has been seen, then repeated many more times in the 50 + shops to wander around. The next island was Burano which celebrated lace. A much prettier island to saunter as all the little houses are painted different colours so viewed in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Our gondola ride was savoured on the last day. Having walked many streets and bridges to see those sights from the water was really interesting adventure. Our man shared some intriguing snippets of information when he wasn’t singing to us, we were enthralled with the whole occasion.

Another trip was through the Jewish Ghetto area in Cannaregio region. As we walked up to this area we knew we had entered a different community as the buildings changed, a much stronger vibe of over-peopled. The houses were noticeably smaller and taller, we saw eight stories high where as in all other regions of Venice the buildings were no more than five stories high, whilst also the language and signage was different, with monuments to the war on display. An interesting comparison!

In summary our trip to Venice can be captured with the perception of; 

the locals were friendly and welcoming

the wine was really good

the fish was good and fresh with a great variety

the pasta was good

the pizza was fantastic the best we have ever had

the cultural indulgence was never ending!

To end, a few Venice facts of interest,

• Venice comprises of 117 islands
• Venice is connected by 423 bridges
• In its prime Venice sported 11000 gondoliers, today there is a mere 411 working gondoliers and only one female who is licenced to drive a gondolier!
• Hope you have enjoyed our special celebrations along with us!

I have attached an additional video of all our Venice snippets if you would like a bit more of the Venetian experience, about 20 mins long.