Macs with Packs: And then there were seven.......

We dragged ourselves away from Switzerland while we still had a few dollars left in our pockets and headed to Provence in southern France. Our long-time friend, Barry, has a house here and very kindly offered to put us all up.

We arrived in the evening and found a group of people had all been invited over for dinner. We were delighted to catch up with Jane again, who we had met on our last trip, plus some others that we had heard of. To our astonishment, one of the ladies, who now lives in England, was born and raised in Ballarat! Leonie from Ballarat is in the centre and Barry's on the left of this photo. We had a wonderful dinner with great people.

The next day was wet and cool so we had a quiet day which didn't hurt at all. We checked out the local flea market and went for a bit of a walk around the village. We found this great Trompe L'oeil painting on a wall.

Speaking of Trompe L'oeil paintings, Barry showed us around his huge cellar. The house used to be owned by a Baron centuries ago and there was an escape tunnel from the cellar. The tunnel started collapsing so Barry had it filled in then had this wonderful painting put over it.

If the Saturday was quiet then the Sunday was huge! Jane kindly invited us over for lunch. I'm not sure she knew quite what she was getting herself into! Barry showed us around her town first. We loved the old Roman Bridge although it has such a sad history. A flash flood drowned many people here about 25 years ago.

The setting was perfect - the sun was out and we sat on the deck at Jane's house. Jane's English friend, Hilary, was also there, so there were seven of us. We brought plenty of wine and we had a really wonderful, fun-filled afternoon.

Mark found a guitar and the music started. After a few drinks we were all such brilliant singers!

The tempo picked up as the boozy afternoon progressed. What's wrong with a little dance in the sunshine?

Things started to deteriorate when I picked up the drumsticks. 'My Sharona' will never be the same again!

We decided to explore Jane's village a bit more and had a ball. We climbed a hill, explored old lane-ways and checked out views. The seven stooges were in good form.

It was a tad windy on top of the hill!

Fads and I found some beautiful artwork in one of the small shops.

Thank you to Barry, Jane and all their friends for showing us such great hospitality!

We said our goodbyes and sadly left beautiful Provence. We drove to Nice where we dropped off Dusty, the hire car, and flew to Venice. We had a huge apartment right on one of the main squares. The weather was cool but it was OK.

Two happy Aussies in the city of romance.....

It happened to be my birthday the day we arrived so we planned a cicchetti evening. Cicchettis are small snacks that you have with drinks.

First stop. The cicchettis were good and we had to have Prosecco with them of course!

The second stop was the best by far. The meatballs were simply amazing! I've never been excited by meatballs before! We met up with an English couple and spent the rest of the night with them. Fun times!

The third stop had terrible food - fried things re-heated in a microwave. Check out Mark's face. He hated them. It's lucky the Prosecco was good!

Last stop was a gelato place. We found a sensational gelato place the next day but this was fine at the time!

Venice seemed more crowded and less special this time around for us and I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it was because the other times we've been there we've come straight from home, and waking up at 5am and walking the streets seeing the city wake up is a pretty amazing thing to do.

Having said that, we seemed to have more of a party time this time around. John had booked a wine tasting and lunch for us all at the Venissa winery on a nearby island. We caught a ferry out to the island and passed one of a number of leaning towers on the way. These towers were all built hundreds of years ago on very low islands and many are leaning to one side as the earth under them is unstable.

During the lunch it started to rain. Then it poured and poured! Good thing we were snug and dry inside. And good thing that the red wine made by their winemaker in not-too-distant Tuscany was amazing.....................................

We started talking to an American couple, Joan and Bob, at the next table and, as the rain kept falling, we all settled in for the afternoon. This can be a dangerous thing to do at a winery! John reckons Joan is a dead ringer for Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane. Anyone else agree?

The rain finally eased and it turned out that we were all planning to go to the next island, Burano, to check out the coloured houses in the fishing villages. Burano was only a short walk away via a bridge. As we walked along, a young girl, Katie, asked where we were from. It turned out that she was American but lived in Sydney. Of course, she joined us. So now we were seven again!

Tadah! An excited Aussie in Italy.

Burano was stunning.

Two crazy girls having a blast.

We ferried back to Venice and the seven of us stayed in a bar for a while just chatting and having a good time. Katie, Joan and Bob eventually left and the remaining four of us had a really wonderful dinner in a very cool restaurant.

We took things a bit easier the next day. We checked out the Rialto Market and saw amazing fish and things like gorgeous bunches of chillies.

We had fun just exploring the city. This was very cool!

Classic Venice.

St Mark's Basilica detail.

Fads, Mark and I went inside St Mark's Basilica. There was a huge queue but Fads and Mark worked out a jump-the-queue system and we got in really quickly which was amazing considering the queue snaked for hundreds of metres! The interior was incredible and we got to overlook St Mark's Square from a balcony. There were surprisingly few people in the square - they were all in the queue!

Four Aussies on the Rialto Bridge.

The next day, Fads and Mark left to go to Florence. John and I had one more day so we joined a walking tour. It was fun and informative. One place we knew nothing about was the Jewish Ghetto. For many years, Jews were segregated from the general community in Venice but at least they were allowed to live there, unlike many other places in Europe. There were memorials to the Jews who were taken to concentration camps and never returned. This is just a small part of a list of their names and ages. It's sobering stuff.