One of our first visits was to Via Reggio, which is on the west coast of Italy. It is famous for its carnival.

Of course, a side-effect of the carnival was that there was complete mayhem on the streets. Sebastian got "stringed".

Here's the view of the local town (village, really), as seen from the back windows of the villa. It seems that towns were often build in the highest places in this region, for defensive purposes.

We certainly enjoyed buying and preparing local food. Sebastian learned how to cook spagetti.

And we enjoyed eating the local food (and wine!) too.

We drove around the mountains a fair bit - fascinating. Lots of hilltop settlements, each bearing a striking resemblence to Gormenghast! It was very dry and bright, but icy cold. We took a short walk along a path, which would be a pleasant stroll in summer - but water had run over it in several places, then frozen, making it particularly difficult.

We also visited Florence (Firenze). Sebastian was particularly struck with a street player, pretending to be a statue of Cupid!

Sebastian with a statue of Puccini.

A shot of Trevor and Sebastian posing on the famous bridge in Florence, which houses all of the gold shops. We had lunch at the restaurant overlooking (or overhanging?) the water.

No trip to Italy is complete without large (and expensive) ice creams!

We also visited Lucca, were we cycled around the old walls.