Decisions, Decisions...

On September 11, 2018, Tim and I managed to sneak out on a Tuesday night for a quiet dinner away from our 4 kids for our 19th wedding anniversary.  Other than a nice meal, our one goal for the evening was to pick where in the world we wanted to go for our 20th anniversary a year later.  We talked about everywhere from an Alaskan cruise to Australia, African safari to the Amazon, trips around Europe or an all-inclusive trip to the Caribbean.  Our waiter weighed in with two thumbs up for Europe, and we left dinner full but completely undecided.  Countless friends and co-workers chimed in over the next few months, and the list of locations was growing, not shrinking, and the thought of all the planning needed to make this "perfect" was getting overwhelming.

 

In February, I had just received my Rick Steves' Europe Thru the Back Door gift from donating to NPR, and saw an ad in the materials for Rick Steves' tours.  We had narrowed our choices down to "somewhere with good food and good wine", and seeing as I had found NO time to go to a travel agent (my new plan for making the trip "perfect"), I hopped online to see what he had to offer.  After an hour of research, reading reviews and periodically consulting my husband, I decided, yes, it really could be "just this easy", and booked the Heart of Italy tour at 10:45 pm.  I slept really well that night!

 

Within a week, we had grandparents lined up to watch the kiddos, airline tickets booked and the count down was officially on to our 20th anniversary.

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This site is not a play-by-play of the trip, but rather a collection of the things we learned and what we remember most about each stop on the tour.  We had a FANTASTIC tour guide in Francesco, and we couldn't have asked for better travel companions in the other 26 people on our tour.  We would do another Rick Steves tour in a heartbeat, it was a wonderful present to ourselves after 20 years!

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Oh, and be sure to check out our Engineering Shout-Outs; we couldn't help ourselves...