Not Italy?

You look at the fresco on the ceiling; and the statues in the courtyard;  you look at the architecture of this two storey building complex and you pinch yourself and ask 'is this Monday and am I in Italy?'

But no, you are not in Italy but in a little bit of Italy on exactly the other side of the world.

Across the road from this ornate Italian edifice which houses a cinema as well as several restaurants and a weekend market, are small fibro and wooden dwellings, the type of dwellings that characterise Ettalong on the NSW Central Coast. Yes, you are in Ettalong, not in Italy. 

This is the most extraordinary building in the most extraordinary place; in a town full of seaside cottages, fifty meters from a lovely swimming beach and quite off the beaten track. How did this building land here?

'Italianate' architecture