Thursday 9 August we were heading north back to Tuscany. Many people have said to me to stop in Siena, and we missed it on the way down, so I thought it would make a good half-way stop on the way back up to Venice. We were originally thinking of heading down to Greece from Italy, but we have decided we can do Greece later or on our way home. We really need to start heading north to see the northern countries before it gets too cold.

Our intention was to get an early start to beat the bad traffic out of Sorrento and Naples. We got away just after 7, but really should have gone earlier. We had a good run out of Sorrento but heading up the freeway to Naples they had 3 lanes going into 1 and the traffic was badly backed up. I think it took us 2 hours to get to the other side of Naples (twice as long as it should have), but nevertheless we still got to Siena at a reasonable time and there was still plenty of room for us at the caravan park.

This caravan park is the closest one to Siena. It's in a great location, with a bus stop just a short walk away. It is quite new with modern amenities; a lovely pool and bar area and we could get WIFI at our caravan. We decided to stay here a few extra days to recharge, which is what we did the following day - catching up with family on Skype and swimming in the pool. While we were staying here I really wanted to do some wine tours, but having looked at some brochures we found they were quite expensive and would be very long days for Cara.

Saturday 11 August we caught the bus into Siena and had a wander through the streets. We were there reasonably early so for a few hours it wasn't too crowded. I'd forgotten about the covered shoulders and knees rule in a lot of religious places in Italy so we couldn't get into the Duomo, but having seen our fair share of churches, we weren't really phased. Loche had seen signs to a torture museum and wanted to go, but when he walked in with Cara to enquire, Cara saw the skeletons and a few other scary looking things and she wasn't going back in! So I stayed with her while Loche went in.

The torture museum was a bit of an eye-opener, showcasing various tools used over the past centuries, with some devices for grotting (chocking) being used up to the 1970's in Spain. The collection included items such as servants' sandals that were used to punish clumsy servants. There were jaws on the heels of the shoes and they were tightened to ensure the servants walked without making a sound. If the bell on the front of the shoes rang, the master tightened the jaws at the heel even further. How a "human being " could subject another to this is beyond us.

I went to the tourist info office to enquire about wine tasting and was told there was a place not far away that had a wine museum and you could do tastings as well. So once Loche came out of the museum, we wandered over to learn about this large wine region. We ended up being disappointed with the whole place. The museum was just bottles of wine on display with no information about them (not even in Italian). We went upstairs to do some tastings and were shown which wines were available to taste. We asked a few questions to find out a bit more about each wine and the region in general but the man serving wasn't very forthcoming. We tried one wine each and then headed back to the bus.

The next day we drove to San Gimignano, an historic town about an hours drive away. We found a museum that had a miniature model of the town on display. There were other bits of artwork all of which had been made on site and a lot were replications of crockery that were originally used by the villagers - the artists who make them are archeologists as well and make them out of the same materials as were originally used.

Monday 13 August we were up early, packing up and headed for Venice. We left Siena just on 7am and arrived in Venice around lunchtime. Once again, this caravan park was conveniently located with the ferry over to Venice just 100 metres away. Loche was in his element as we were right on the water with massive ships going past very regularly. There was plenty to look at and we could see Venice across the water. To top it off two girls turned up in their Landrover Defender 110. He was more than willing to go over and have a chat to them, finding out that the car belonged to the father of one of them. Cara was also impressed telling me she wants a Landrover like that one.

We went to the bar that night and were doing some research online about Switzerland (our next stop after Venice). We were a bit worried about the passes through the Alps and which ones were okay to take a caravan through. We got talking to a bus driver who takes busses into Switzerland and he eased our mind a bit. He also mentioned we would be going through a 17 km long tunnel on the way and the traffic can back up very quickly as it narrows down to one lane.

As we were sitting at the bar a van drove past, catching Loche's eye. He said - "Hey there's the Chinese guys who we met in Rome, I thought they were heading to Greece." So it wasn't long before he was over finding out about their trip. They had set up camp right near us again and we found out they had already been to Greece and were in Venice for a few days. They departed the same day as us for Zurich in Switzerland.

A little background history - When we were in Rome camped next to us, a Chinese family who had driven their ford van with a roof tent from Sichuan province in China through Russia and were touring around Europe. The family of Dad and two brothers and their wives were all crammed into the one van and had been touring for 3 months. One brother and his wife lived in Melbourne for a year.

On Tuesday 14 August we caught the 9am ferry over to Venice. I was worried it was going to be smelly and hot - as I'd been told on a really hot day Venice wasn't that pleasant. We were very fortunate that it wasn't smelly at all (only once later in the day did our noses twitch in disgust).

When we first got off the ferry, we were taking some pictures on the bridge over the Grand Canal. A man (who looked like another tourist) came up to Loche and started chatting to him, asking where he was from. He said to Loche that he could take our photo for us. We'd no sooner handed the camera over and were getting our photo taken, when we started to think 'oh no, he could run off with the camera, what were we thinking!! He didn't run off with it, but did request we give him a Euro or two as he was a homeless man. We'd heard of this happening before and gave him a few Euros for being so very clever about the whole thing (and actually taking some good shots).

We kept walking and soon came across some gondoliers who were willing to move on the price of a gondola ride because it was still early and business was slow. He was a lovely gondolier who told us about various famous buildings as we went past and he even sang a tune or two. Normal price is 80 Euro but as first customers we paid 50 euros.

It's so easy to get lost in the many winding narrow alleyways of Venice and they all start to look the same very quickly, but that was half the fun. We weren't in a rush and we were happy we didn't book any tours, just glad to be wandering around and taking it all in.

We caught the 4.30 pm ferry back to the caravan park and got organized for our early start the next day. We'd been told the 17km long, St Gotthard tunnel was on the border of Italy and Switzerland so we thought it best to get an early start to make sure we got through the tunnel before it got too busy.