Luckily, I squeezed into Italy before the Spanish air controllers' strike began. Oh, those silly Spaniards and their huelgas. This one was particularly clownish; I won't go into the gory details but this article gives a pretty good summary of the whole event.
I got in Thursday very late and left Tuesday morning, which left 4 full days for yummy food and merriment! On Friday for lunch, we went to an AMAZING pizza stand called "Pizza Dui Torre" because it's by the Piazza Due Torri. We ate straight-outta-the-oven slices wrapped in paper on the street aka Italian-style. Delicious! Sorry Star Tavern, but this was definitely the best pizza I've ever eaten. After, we went to an art museum (don't remember its name) in Bologna's town hall in the Piazza Maggiore.It was full of interesting art. We signed the guest book:
Later that day we went to the Basilico of San Petronio, which is also in the Piazza Maggiore. We decided to celebrate Hanukkah by lighting some candles. Not totally kosher, but it was the best we could do! We also checked out the Fountain of Neptune, which is a major site also in the P.M.
Later that night we went to Restaurante La Brace for super-awesome pasta. I had tortellOni, which, thanks to the waiter who explained this approximately 6 times, is totally different from tortellIni. Apparently tortelloni is bigger. Anyway, mine were ricotta and spinach-filled and cooked in a butter-sage sauce. Considering that they don't even have butter in Spain, I was in cheesy heaven! Later that night we met up with Talia's friend Sheri and went to a few bars before ending the night early-ish.
On Saturday morning, we awoke with the sun - more like at 8 - and caught a very slow train to Florence. After consulting the train timetables, we decided that we really only had time to do one "main" museum in addition to shopping and lunch. We picked the Uffizi instead of the Academia, which was a great choice because there was NO line to get in and we spent two great hours perusing the art. It was really nice to visit the museum with Talia, who is a bona-fide art lover like me. I know a lot about myths and saints from reading, but she's majoring in Art History and knows a lot about painters and time periods. We traded tidbits from our respective areas of expertise and we both ended the day rather educated about art overall. After the museum, we went to another great restaurant (it seems like there are no bad restaurants in all of Italy). It was freezing, so we both ordered scrumptious ribollita stew. After lunch, we walked around near the Ponte Vecchio. I ate some necessary gelato (stracciatella, nutella, and chocolate) and we bought some mysterious things for various people. On our way back to the train station, we walked through some darling Christmas markets and bought postcards and I got a leather dragon keychain. We lurked around the Basilica di Santa Maria di Fiore aka the Duomo. It was just as beautiful as I remember.
When we got back to Bologna, we went out to dinner at Osteria dell' Orsa, one of Talia's favorite restaurants in Bologna. It was really fun -- communal tables, a menu that changes daily, and just a generally fun atmosphere. I had tagliatelle al ragu, which the rest of the world knows as pasta bolognese. Afterwards, we went to one of Bologna's clubs, Hobby One, and stayed there more or less until it closed at 4. Which was super weird because in Madrid things don't even get going until then!
I'm going to skip over Saturday because we spent most of the day bumming around Talia's apartment eating pizza from Due Torri (who also deliver!). We made it to Gelateria Gianni, and as it turns out it was their last day before they closed for renovations. Talia and Sheri were very sad, but I was just happy to get some more amazing gelato!
On Monday, we spent another great day exploring Bologna. It was heinously freezing, but we climbed 97.2 meters up many, many narrow wooden steps to the top of the Asinelli Tower, the taller of the Due Torri. Apparently in the 12th and 13th centuries for some reason it was very popular to build towers; during that time there were as many as 180 towers in Bologna! The towers, arcades, and Porti around the center of the city still stand from the middle ages! Bologna is definitely a city that still lives in its history, as opposed to Madrid, where almost everything is brand-new. From the top of the tower, we got a so-so view of the city because of the weather, but I can imagine that it's amazing when the sky is clear. One of Bologna's nicknames is "La Rossa," meaning "the red" because of the distinctive stone used to construct its buildings. FYI-- the others are "La dotta" (erudite, because of the medieval University of Bologna which was founded in 1088) and "la grossa" (fat; I think you can figure this one based on my experience so far!).
finally made it!
a little sign at the entrance shows how the asinelli tower pwns
almost all of italy's other towers. our gal is in the center.
These are out of order. Photos from the treacherous ascent!
Note the cloud level; we went above that.
talia looks like she's down a well like eddy in the CRB song
Arrivederci Bologna!
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