The man with 3 wives in Lago di Como

We thought it was strange that people kept staring at us, until Em pointed out that a guy sitting at the dinner table with three women wearing wedding rings and speaking in English might attract a few odd looks. From that point on we declared Simon to be the proud husband of 3 wives.

We were staying in Gravedona, a nice small-ish town in the north of Lake Como, which doesn't attract quite as many tourists as the more southern towns. Our weekend was pretty wet... well, let's face it, the weather was shocking. But we still managed to get out and explore Lake Como and have heaps of fun and plenty of laughs.

The photos will do most of the talking...

Our days started with the best croissants we've ever tasted in a pasticceria in Gravedona...

Gravedona

Why is it that when you ask someone to take a photo for you, they always want to get the pavement, and forget the nice background? Here's a classic:

Tara mastered the self-take

The rain held off for long enough for us to get a boat to Bellagio, for some shopping, pizza, and exploring.

Tara snapped the 20 week belly pic below...

The chicks enjoying a little bit of sunshine back in Gravedona

ER's artiste shot

Plenty of good food was enjoyed by all, and wine by 3/4 of us.

The owner of our agriturismo took a liking to us, and sat with us for about half an hour making small talk. When my entire Italian vocab ran out and we tried to escape, he offered to show us the animals. We went around the back of the farmhouse and discovered them picking cherries, which they said were for us! Score!

We then discovered the extremely well endowed male sheep, that appeared to have just fathered a heap of little lambs. We couldn't stop laughing not only at his enormous balls, but also the bassitone baaas he kept letting out, that sounded so deep they could have been coming from a cow. Our host must have thought we were quite mad the way we laughed at this sheep. Classic. Here he is with two of his wives - he's the one on the right!

After a great weekend of tasty food, good friends, and many laughs, we just managed to get Em and Tara to the airport, and ourselves home to Verona before our beloved VW Trend overheated and died*.

Just as well we weren't planning on going anywhere for a while!

• The Trend only died temporarily - it's back from repairs now much to my disappointment, as I had to hand back the keys to the zippy brand new Polo loan car.