We headed over to Venice for 5 days (officially so Sarah could go to a conference). Firstly, Italy is sooooo expensive. After South America it made me feel a little ill. But Venice is magic and if you can find a corner without 1,000 cruiseboat tourists it is pretty special. It's easy to get lost (which I did and was nearly 2 hours late meeting Sarah) in the 1,000's of cool streets. After living in Melbourne I new what to expect in Italy and nothing is different. I've never seen so many fashion 'victims' in one place, but there's no shortage of confidence with the lads. The food and coffee was excellent (I'd given coffee a miss in South America as it consisted of powdered coffee and powdered milk with some hot water) and a pizza was about the only cheap thing there. AliItalia lost my bags on the way home (their reputation seems well deserved) so we got caught up in Madrid waiting for an extra day.