Day 7 has arrived already marking almost a week since we were rolling down the main runway at Gatwick.

We had seen the Eiffel Tower, enjoyed the trams and Duomo in Milan and taken in the breath taking natural beauty of Lake Garda...and here we were waking up in one of the worlds most intriguing, beautiful and unique landscapes that of Venice.

Some of us including myself were feeling the excesses of the previous nights entertainment, maybe those two huge beers the previous night had not been such a good idea after all.

To be fair as lovely as the hotel room was it was very hot and there seemed to be a variety of noises that were waking us up throughout the night including the toll of bells, general banging and the sound of suitcases being dragged along the narrow streets.

Josie, Mads and I managed to make it down for a continental breakfast which was a vast improvement on the Cactus Hotel offerings in Paris with a good selection of fruit, cereals, yogurts and the like along with fruit juice, tea and coffee this time served to the table by a smartly dressed waitress.

After breakfast we checked out of our room and left the luggage with the hotel. After a bit of discussion we decided that we would make out way towards St. Marks square but this time by boat bus.

We had vastly overspent the previous day so had to keep a tight eye on what we were spending, we knew that the boat bus would cost 37.5 Euros but could do without this cost...as Lady Luck would have it the ticket machine at the boat bus stop we were boarding was out of order so picture taken of this incase we were challenged for a ticket we managed our second free ride of the holiday.

After a short walk through the narrow streets, across one or two canals and through beautiful squares we made our way to St.Marks Square...nearby St.Marks Square are all the famous fashion and jewellery brands such as Gucci, Guess and Burberry amongst others... This is by far the most expensive area of Venice. Also selling (assumed fake branded) ladies bags, were Africans sited along the streets in this area.

Whilst walking along to St.Marks Square and afterwards when we made our way back to the hotel, we stopped off in a couple of beautiful churches, with stunning architectural and decorative features emblazoned. These are incredible structures and you wonder how they were ever built given what they had available to them.

Lunch time beckoned and we managed to spend just 22€ this time although we did not have drinks, so that helped with the cost.

By now it was around 2pm and we knew that we had 3 hours until the train (our final train journey of the holiday) would leave on it's journey to Roma Termini (Rome ).

We were all by now rather thirsty so stopped off at a cafe not far from our hotel...whilst there a baby appeared to have a serious medical condition..fortunately a team of paramedics arrived and everything turned out well for the baby.

In the meantime we got charged 27€ around £20 for four soft drinks and a beer which I was a bit peed off with.

We decided to walk back to the Venice station as it would both save money on the boat bus and kill a bit of time. This turned out to be quite hard work in the heat and given there were canals to negotiate with stepped bridges this didn't help either...to add insult to injury the pull on my suitcase broke off.

It's safe to say that we were all very pleased when we saw the station, and at 17.25 we would be on our way to our next City, the famous and historical City of Rome.

The train left on time and this would be a four hour journey on another high speed train which would reach speeds of up to 248 Kmh (150 Mph).

Trenitali operate some quality trains and this was no exception. Features inside the cabin include Free Charging Points ( we had read a story on Sky News that same day about a chap in London who had been arrested for doing the same thing on an underground train)...the overhead storage is large enough to store a suitcase, there are built in reading lamps and TV Monitors that offer useful passenger information (in multiple languages including Chinese) and some advertising it has to be said. All very impressive in my opinion.

The scenery on this journey was not as panoramic as that on the journey from Paris to Milan and there were some particularly long tunnels.

South of Bologne we were treated to a mountain backdrop, and for some time we came across fields and fields of sunflowers, sparkling in the late afternoon sun.

Every so often we would pass small villages some built into hillsides and the occasional dual carriageway usually very quiet, nothing too remarkable here although it was nice to sit down for a few hours after all the walking around the streets of Venice in the dry heat of the day.

At around 8pm the sun started setting and it would be dark come 9pm our thoughts turning to Wednesday evening when we would be driving up from the airport to our hotel in Sardinia.

By 9.30pm our train was pulling into Rome Termini. Fortunately we had been texted by the lady managing the accommodation we would be staying at in Rome informing us that the taxi fare would cost around 50€ or we could get the subway for around 8€. A no brainer really so off we set to find the Metro as it's officially called here in Rome to Piramide Station... So called as there is a huge stone Pyramid right outside the station I assume.

An elderly chap either enterprising or just helpful helped us with the ticket machine and we gave him a Euro for his troubles.

The trains were quite busy even on a Monday evening, four stops later we arrived at Piramide and with the help of street view made the 8 minute walk to our accommodation which this time was a private apartment.

Across the road were what looked liked graffitied garages, not a great first impression, however when we were shown into the apartment we were very impressed indeed. With a modern contemporary look it had the feel of a New York loft apartment with a living area (purple plastic chandelier and all) 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom.

The room rate was very cheap too probably because of the location outside of the main drag.

As far as we could tell the only drawback is the fact that 4 rail tracks run directly behind and we could clearly hear and feel the rumble of trains as they passed throughout the night.

By midnight we were all in bed ready for a day exploring a Rome the next day,