A big day of driving from Austria before finally arriving in the drowning city of Venice in the late afternoon. This was to be the first of our 3 camping ground cabin accommodations in Italy as opposed to large hostels. A provided local dinner and at last a quiet night and free time to recharge our batteries, both health wise & electronic devices to catch up on current affairs back in Australia. An early bed time by most ahead of a long day of exploring the city of Venice, except Doug who thought it'd be a good idea to drink by himself and could be heard from our cabins doing knock and runs around the campsite, giggling to himself like a 12 year old boy at school camp. He would soon regret that decision the next morning.

Up bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning to carry out my allocated breakfast service duties before jumping on a ferry, arriving at the island of Venice. A short walking tour before being allocated the remainder of the day to roam the streets (or canals) on our own accord. The first point of call was a visit to St Marks square and a much anticipated gelato stop (first of many). We managed to sneak into a tour into the St Marks Basilica, got lost in the city, popped up at the Rialto Bridge, visited a glass making workshop and in the afternoon hopped aboard a world renown gondola ride through the canals. It was amazing viewing the city by water rather than on land, and a much more relaxing and scenic way to get around than the usual hussle and bussle by foot. So relaxing in fact that 4 of us 5 boys fell asleep sitting upright for majority of the tour. The serenity was just too good. After a long day in the heat it was off to get another gelato and hop aboard the ferry back to the hostel for the night, and what a night it was to be.

Keeping in the spirit of Italy we decided to grab copious amounts of limoncello bottles for drinks by the river with the majority of our tour group. A nice way to start a fun night; a campsite-run battle of the Contiki groups beach party, featuring tug of war, dancing comps (which inevitably led to a wet t-shirt tournament very quickly), abdominal competitions, tug of war, and the main event; sumo wrestling starring Jack as our groups contender. He was beaten out in the group stages by a poor, Ashes-standard umpiring decision but provided good entertainment in the process in his sumo outfit (video to come). Our tour manager had previously warned us of such 'amnesia' drinks, stating that "having 1 is delicious, 2 you're really having a good time, 3 and you're on your backside with no memory". This was taken on as more of a challenge than a warning & the night kicked on from there with stage dancing, good music, continuos hosing down till the point of looking like drenched rats and at midnight celebrated the 30th birthday of our good Kiwi friend from the group. A rather crazy night which led to a no show for my breakfast cooking duties, rather opting for the additional hour sleep in before our journey down to the Italian capital of Rome.