In the Brembana Valley, the river reigns supreme. In fact, there is still a functioning water mill for grinding corn, as well as people passionate about maintaining centuries-old traditions.

Here and there in the small villages of the valley, there are interesting frescos hearalding back to earlier times. Two local recipes are offered: stuffed curly cabbage leaves and Taragna polenta, a kind of cornmeal with the addition of buckwheat.

The fine white mold that forms on the cheese helps give it its characteristic flavor, but it is also painstakingly scraped off each round. Before the high-altitude pastures are ready for grazing, humans take advantage of the snow and the trails.

Lo stracchino is a soft, mild but flavorful cheese that's spreadable, and we find it in supermarkets all over Italy. But the kind Francesca's family produces in the mountains, with traditional tools, is on a whole other level. Why is this cheese called stracchino? There is a fascinating reason. Watch the video.

We've come to the end of this journey to find Valentina. Philip Rembrandt continues to wait, and Valentina never forgets him.

Il formaggio (cheese) is rarely missing from an Italian kitchen. This video takes us to the mountains north of Bergamo where the Monaci family has kept the family cheese-making tradition going, beginning in the stable where the cows are taken care of during the colder months.

Which came first? Blow-Up or Ciao Valentina? Which work stole from the other? In any case, there are some striking similarities.

Crepax's stories were based on imagination and vision. In those years, artists contaminated one another's works, and there was even a curious connection between Crepax's Ciao Valentina and Antonioni's Blow-Up.

Who was the model for Valentina? Certainly, the actress Louise Brooks who portrayed Lulu in the movie Pandora's Box directed by G.W Pabst (based on two plays by Frank Wedekind), but also Crepax's wife, Luisa Mandelli.

Just as in Cubist art, Crepax would design his figures to be seen from various points of view simultaneously. Sometimes he would use small windows to attract attention rather than making them larger.

Guido Crepax's son Antonio talks about the day Antonio Custra was killed in May of 1977, during an armed demonstration in Milan. This was during the so-called anni di piombo (years of lead), a period of social turmoil, political violence and upheaval that lasted from the late 1960s until the late 1980s, marked by a wave of both far-left and far-right incidents of political terrorism and violent clashes. Many demonstrators were arrested, but Antonio Crepax managed not to get loaded onto a paddy wagon.

Crepax loved playing at battles and would change the outcomes, using his friends to fine-tune the moves. He had some famous personalities as willing participants in the games, too.

Besides his much better known activity as a graphic artist, Crepax was a keen wargamer and wargame designer and collector of paper soldiers, drawn by himself.

One of Crepax's techniques is to use the details of everyday life to build his stories and provide context. We even see the titles of the books in Valentina's bookcase.

Among the pages of the comic strip, family members find familiar objects, drawings, and personal information from their everyday life. Although Valentina was a figment of Crepax's imagination, she was also an integral part of his family.