Italy: Accurately represented by violent cinema.

The mafia.

I can't say for certain that I was witness to mafia activity. I have no actual 'evidence' as they say. But you know; men, guns, Italy. You join the dots.

So we ended up in Venice. It had never been our intention to go to Italy. I had said the words: "I have no desire to go to Italy at all. It's strange. It does not interest me in any way". And so, while in Finland, we burned the Italy section of the Lonely Planet. And Portugal and Spain. Andorra, Germany, Belgium, Iceland, Austria. Gone. All part of Idiot Boy's grand plan to 'consolidate' our luggage down to a lunchbox. He says the Lonely Planet is significantly lighter now. I got to burn Switzerland myself though. I really hate that country.

We went to Italy because there was a cheap flight from Madrid to Milan and Milan is east of Madrid. And we stopped in Venice because Venice is east of Milan. And we stayed in Venice for 6 nights more than planned because we were living in a caravan park out past the airport and we discovered that you can quite easily live on pesto, gelato and women's multi vitamins.

We had been walking for hours one day and found a quiet part of the city. We found two health food shops and declared the area bohemian. It's quite a rare thing, in Venice, to find a part of the city away from the chaos of the pounding of tourist upon tourist, and we thought ourselves superior and fortunate.

We stopped to take a photo of this little piece of stencil art. Because we thought it was funny. Gun death, we laughed. Ha ha. Sometimes there's tempting fate, and then there is tempting fate.

"Our own little part of Venice", said Laurie looking out over the canal at the gently bobbing fishermen's boats. I nodded. Venice is nice.

We started towards this little narrow alley that had clothes strung between opposite windows. And I got to thinking about how it is that after hundreds and hundreds of years of stringing clothes between windows, nobody has thought there may be a more effective method of drying clothes. And how it is that noone seems to mind that the whole city can see your underwear. I've seen undies that could power yachts. And I saw one apartment which washed a load of pinks and whites twice within a week. What kind of freaks have that much pink that they need to do two loads a week? Who would do something like that?

It was because of this kind of profound thought that I didn't catch it when Laurie first said "That's a gun".

I continued walking down the little narrow alley.

"That's a gun", said Laurie again. But he says a lot of things. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I hear other things. This particular time I heard 'that's a group', by which I assumed he meant a tour group and so I picked up the pace planning to get close to the group and listen in to the guide's talk and get information for free (score!).

"That's a gun", said Laurie.

And then I saw it. The man pointing some object at another man's head, that man opening his trench coat in an apparent gesture of innocence. And the man in a black beanie and sunglasses who was looking straight at us.

"Oh", said I. "A gun".

We tried to walk away at a pace that told the organised criminals, "Hey guys, we don't condone your activity, but we lack the linguistic skills and local 'know how'" to report it. We're nobody. We like your gelato". And then Laurie took of his jacket so that we could not be tracked down by the mob.

On the plus side, Italy had Lindt balls as big as my head!

You win some, you lose some. But with gigantic Lindt balls, everyone's a winner.