Step two to learning to travel like a pro

     Our tour of Italy would NOT have been complete without our Italian tour guide, Elisabetta and our tour bus driver, Biagio.  Biagio didn't say a word the entire two weeks.  Elisabetta spoke plenty for both of them. Each morning after breakfast, we 36 Tourists boarded the bus and waited for number 37... My lovely bride.
 As soon as we were all together, Elisabetta would sing-song her greeting, "Ahh! My babies! Ciao!  Hello my honeymooners! Thank you everyone for being early!  Lady, you were right   on   time! Perfetto! OK! Andiamo!"  My wife and I were the ONLY honeymooners on the trip.  As a result, at every family style dinner one of the two octogenarian sisters would lean forward with a giant grin, look at the two of us, and start clinking her wine glass... our wedding reception lasted a long time...
     At each tour stop (museums, churches, ruins, etc) a local guide shared the history behind the attraction and paraded the group through the site at his or her pace. My wife and I learned quickly to wander on our own.  We made sure of the departure time and rally point, grabbed a map and took off hand-in-hand to explore.  Because of this, we saw 60% of the excavated portion of Pompeii (huge!) compared to the 10% most of our crew experienced.  (The local guide that day was quite long-winded)  We also started to learn each other's strengths and how to communicate better... After all, my marriage is the most important relationship I have on this planet, and it's WELL worth the effort to learn how to work together!

Colosseum after dusk (pic from Wiki)
     We had a 90's era film canister type camera on our honeymoon tour... please forgive the file photos! ALWAYS get your pics on CD!  (Archaic for many of us with Today's technology, maybe...)

     If step one in learning to travel like a pro is to TRAVEL - Start from the Beginning, then step two must be... Do it again!  My Dad had two rules for us growing up... Rule #1:  Don't Do It!  Rule #2:  Don't Do It Again!  I've taken that excellent advice and applied it to many areas of my life.  For things I enjoy, however, I remove the 'Don't' from the imperative.  So... we did it again.  We returned to our brick and mortar travel agent, regaled her of our trip, showed her some pictures (which I cannot find now...), threw a dart at the Western US and planned our next trip!    ...    Montana!     ...   for Christmas :)  

  Start small, but out of your comfort zone... for some, the front door...  GO!
Peace be the journey!
timlambert.travelspy@gmail.com