We spent a day in Sienna visiting the Doumo and the very impressive Piazza del Campo, as well as the usual lurking around back streets. We had our best and cheapest coffee ever here and sampled the delights of pannaforte - a cross between fruit cake and toffee - a sort of sticky fruity nutty thing - beautiful! Our highlight was sitting in the piazza in the sun, on the ground, munching on our pannini, and watching the world go by.

Sienna Duomo is a wonder - all white and dark green marble. The stripes are stunning. This is the 35th cathedral that we've been in and we are still fascinated. They are so full of art treasures let alone their religious and cultural significance - and old - this one is - 600 years or so.

Podere Terre is a farm stay where we spent our last days in Chianti. It is a working farm growing grapes and olives. It is run by a lady called Cecelia who is simply charming. There are only three rooms and ours was in the bottom of an old 11C tower - one metre thick walls and enormous timber beams holding up the floor above.

I am writing this sitting under an olive tree sipping Cecelia's wine looking out over the countryside under brilliant sunshine and taking in the peace and quiet -church bells in the distance. Dianne is sitting next to me eating walnuts she picked five minutes ago. Not so long ago we wandered along a track picking fresh figs and grapes - mmmmmmmmm! we could get used to this!

We took the car back to Florence and caught the train to Venice - straight into a storm. The alleys of Venice make great wind tunnels making umbrellas useless - not that two people with umbrellas can pass in half the streets. That meant we had the whole of St Marks Square to ourselves the night we arrived. Still, the gondolas looked fantastic.

Venice is everything everyone says it is - romantic, decadent, touristy, beautiful and wet. There is almost too much going on here. We've never had so much fun getting lost. The whole place is back alleys. If it wasn't for the fact that this is an island with a grand canal right up the middle you could get seriously lost. But all that really happens is it takes longer to get where you're going and you keep discovering new things.

Walking around the canals early in the morning is fun. The gondolas, taxis, garbage boats, and delivery boats all vie for the same space. No canal rage but plenty of traffic jams and good natured banter, and arm waving - after all this is Italy.

St Marks Square is of course every bit as good as you'd expect. Not too big; not too small and surrounded by some pretty impressive buildings. In the afternoon sun its charming.