This morning we boarded our coach and were taken with a local guide to the shooting locations for Sound of Music. It's very unusual because the movie was a hit with the English speaking world but the Austrians had never heard of it until the tourists started asking about it. Now it has been introduced into their culture.

The family names do not get "von" in front of them unless they have achieved something. Von Trapp was in the navy in WWI and sunk an English vessel.

Of course the movie was put together with different shots filmed in the grounds of various locations. We went to two of them this morning : the house on the lake and a castle gardens where the summerhouse has been rebuilt.

By the way - there are 3 kangaroos in Austria - at the Salzburg zoo!! Although our local guide wasn't sure if they might actually be wallabies!!

After this tour we started on our trek to Italy, travelling through the most scenic alpine countryside. By lunchtime we were still in Austria, and we stopped at a hotel for lunch and for our driver's mandatory break. There were huge mountains all around us and quite a number of hang-gliders at the tops soaring on the uplifts.

We eventually reached Venice where we left the coach and boarded a private boat to take us to our hotel. Our luggage was on board another private boat. The hotel is in what used to be a convent and is absolutely beautiful.

After doing some washing and refreshing ourselves our group had a lovely dinner in the hotel. Tiramisu is a Venetian dessert, and it was lovely (as was the rest of the meal).

After dinner we boarded a private boat once again and were taken to the grand canal - we were dropped ashore and Bob guided us along the main walk and then through alley ways to bring us to the south eastern corner of St Marks Square. We slowly walked through the square, admiring the fresco on the basilica which tells the story of how it became a basilica (apparently Italian towns like to have their own patron saint and Venice had decided on St Mark. For a church to become a basilica it needs to have the relics of a saint, and Venice didn't have any but they knew where there were some, so they sent some people off to obtain them. They hid the relics under pork and pork bones to repel the authorities and brought them to Venice saying that St Mark had been told by an angel that his final resting place would be Venice!

We then strolled over to a restaurant where some tables were reserved for us and we were given a Bellini each while we enjoyed the music of a four pice orchestra for an hour or so. We then boarded two taxis and were motored along the Grand Canal admiring the well-lit beautiful buildings. We returned along the grand canal and then brought back to our hotel in time for bed.