We woke up late probably because all the travelling is starting to catch up with us. Then we went to Duomo to see the famous church, which is the third largest in the world. We got a great view of milan from the top. We then decided to explore duomo further and came across the forzesco castle which had beautiful gardens. We also explored the large park on the other side of it. This area of milan also had some great shops, Henry bought a shirt from the Ferrari sho...

We had an easy journey to milan, only 2 hour train ride. Once at the milano centrale station we sought out the tourist point to buy a 'milano card' each. These cards give us free travel on the metro and discounts on museums and restaurants! We have already made full use of the card taking the metro to find our hostel and eating at a restaurant with 25% discount because of the card. Milan is scorching hot atm but we have a lot planned for the next couple of days.

After a very stormy night we were worried about the weather today. We made the decision not to go to the beach but still go to the church. After leaving lots of time to get to the basilica, we got on the wrong train! We ended up heading further inland in the opposite direction to Venice! Once we had caught a train back the way we came and to venice st lucia, we were still determined to make it to the church in time to use our reserved time slot and skip the queue...

As a lot of reviews of Venice recommend the first thing we did today was 'got lost in Venice'. We wondered the streets and came across beautiful buildings, local shops, cute cafés, many boats and gondolas, churches and very Italian restaurants. We found our way to a view of the open sea and an island opposite. We also came across many other beautiful views. We have established that the ice cream and pizzas in Venice are better than anywhere we have been. We also...

Goodbye Austria! We had a chilled train journey watching the hills of Austria rush by. Followed by a coach ride to Venice mestre. We checked into our first hotel of the trip. For dinner we had our first pizza in Italy that was delicious! The only down side is that it is raining but atleast it's still hot. Looking forward to exploring Venice tomorrow!