Last night along with friends we ventured to the multiplex cinema at Perugia and sat in comfort watching the latest Harry Potter film.

The Multiplex Cinema opened earlier this year, and has ten screens, with large comfortable seats, and with the aid of stereo radio headphones shows foreign language films in their original languages.

Four of us sat giggling as we donned our headphones and listened to the film in English.  The sound was good, but you had to have the volume at a high level to drown out the Italian version, add to that that the headphone technology was rather tetchy and involved juggling the receiver to keep the signal working, it was a strange experience.

Before the film we ate at the onsite restaurant, ‘Old Wild West’ a Tex-Mex style restaurant.  It was quite surreal sitting in  an American style eatery (on horse saddle seats) eating nachos and burgers in deepest Italy.  The atmsosphere was authentic, but alas the food did not live up to the decor.

All in all an enjoyable evening, but we left in full agreement that we prefer real Italian home prepared food, and the quaintness of the small local cinemas that are still very much in evidence here in Umbria.