This is the start of a series about new things to add to your Bucket List. After all, retirement isn’t an end; it is the beginning of a new, twenty year long stage of your life.
So get your new life going with adventures like these:
1. Gondola Ride in Venice, Italy is wonderful, romantic–and expensive–particularly if you are paying for the vacation that goes with the ride. I would suggest that you go after the summer travel season is over. Venice is utterly swamped with tourists and every restaurant, gondola, little alley and gorgeous building is uncomfortably packed with people racing around from here to there, cameras and smart phones in hand. No wonder all the Venetians leave the city during summer. Go off-season to visit this beautiful small city filled with history. Be sure to spend some time watching the world go by over coffee in St. Mark’s Plaza.
2. Gondola Ride. Another choice is a romantic gondola ride complete with champagne and a singing gondolier through the canals and around the island of Naples in Long Beach, California. Then you can bike or stroll along a 7 mile bike path on the beach nearby or shop and dine on Second Street in the nearby Belmont Shore neighborhood. While not as historic as Venice in Italy, you will never face language problems in Long Beach, California. And the Museum of Latin American Art, near downtown, is worth the visit.
3. Whale Watching Adventure in Santa Barbara, California. From February through April expect to see see grey whales. From May through September, massive blue whales, minke whales and dolphins of every size are around the Channel Islands offshore from Santa Barbara. While it is possible to book whale watching trips from other ports in Southern California, my personal favorite is Condor Express out of Santa Barbara. Why? Because after the trip you can the explore historic city with its California Mission, splendid gardens and really great restaurants.
Note: The people mentioned on this site are real and what they did is true. Their names have been changed to protect their privacy.
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