St Albans Mayor Geoff Harrision welcomed visitors from an Italian town twinned with the city.

He accompanied three people from Fano, a beach resort on the Adriatic Coast, which has an important Roman heritage like St Albans.

Former Mayor Cllr Edgar Hill, who is fluent in Italian, acted as translator throughout their stay.

During their two days exploring the district, the visitors were given a tour of the Cathedral and were shown around the council's major redevelopment site CCOS South.

This will deliver more than 90 much-needed new homes, including 33 social housing properties, as well as commercial space.

The three visitors were Massimiliano Barbadoro, Raffaela Pecorelli, and the Councillor for Tourism, Etienn Lucarelli.

They also took a short trip to Harpenden to look round the town’s new Leisure Centre and the Eric Morecambe Centre, a cultural hub which includes a new state-of-the-art theatre.

Their final visit was to the new Cottonmill Community and Cycling Centre, a facility which includes outdoor pump and cyclocross tracks as well as a main building with a function room, café and a cycle hub offering bike maintenance and repair workshops.

Geoff said: “It was a delight to welcome visitors from Fano, an Italian town with which we have been twinned for many years.

“Fano is a similar size to St Albans and was once the site of a major Roman settlement, so we have plenty in common.

“We provided our Italian friends with a busy programme, taking them on tours of some of our major attractions, both old and new. We also showed them what we as a council have been doing to improve the district and make it an even more vibrant place to live and work.

“I think they were impressed by some of our recent projects such as the Eric Morecambe Centre and CCOS South and I hope it gave them a few pointers for developing Fano.

“These twin town visits are an important way of building relationships with people from other countries and exchanging ideas for creating a better future for our communities.”