I did a 6 month stint in Europe as part of my career working in cruise ship casinos. i can recommend Venice as somewhere you should definitely visit. Also just down the road from venice is a town called Mestre (or Mesre), they have a pub down there that we affectionately referred to as the Aussie Bar (lots of aussie memorabilia and for some reason XXXX on tap). Let me know where else you are going and i might be able to name a few more places to visit.

GOOSE