6 Di Casa Marconi Bologna

... tourists like me, enjoying my tree. But enjoying me in this tree. I do not stare but continue reading my book as my picture is stolen from me.
A Little boy walks down the stone path, following him, like a puppy is a yellow and green dump truck, which is attached to him at the wrist
I see the 'senoirs club' all the white head bobbing together, on foot, or on bicycles shuffling along to converge around the ...

... from rocking out of tight situations.

Ferrara Highlights
9200 meters of city walls commissioned by Duke Ercole d'Este and built between 1493 and 1505 with walking paths on top.

Castello Estense de Ferrara--a defensive structure from the early middle ages that dominates the old city surrounded by moat. The Castello Estense was menacing from the outside and lavishly decorated on the inside. You could feel the history and understand the ...

Short train ride from Florence after a hair raising trip trying to return the rental car in confusing, congested and traffic restrictied Florence (don't rent a car downtown go to the airport). Bologna is an university town (even Johns Hopkin has a campus). Very historical town with a great plaza area like most towns and a great antique market.

... the price you might pay at Whole Foods. Not a lot of English is spoken here by the merchants, so I got to practice my Italian which is decent enough to pick out foods and know how much to pay. I'm looking forward to trying out more food today this afternoon. Today it's a daytrip to Ravenna, about 80 minutes to the east to see lots of mosaics from the Dark Ages, around 600 A.D. The sun is shining once again, so time to sign off for now.

... this year. Now I have a permanent, fairly comfortable place to stay, and I think it may have a slightly negative impact on my desire to explore. I don't have that somewhat uncomfortable feeling of being in a ten-person dorm room to push me outside anymore. I also have classmates to spend time with, as opposed to finding people randomly to spend a day with. The fact that I'm on a continent with many countries will allow me the opportunity ...

The streets are alive in Bologna. Nothing stops the ongoing bustle of this moderately sized city, not even the heat. The people are beautiful, the architecture fantastic, and the cafés are plentiful. Today was full on museum mode before everything closed on my last day, and let me just say, I did it all! The best museums in my book were all in conjunction with the University. First was Museo di Palazzo Poggi housing ...

... Bologna. It was only 40km away via the back roads, but we wasted an enormous amount of time stuck in traffic en route, and barely halfway there decided to cut our losses, find an autostrade heading north and look around in Verona instead.

Once in the middle of Verona and crossing under the enormous Porta Nuova, a huge piazza opened up to form the forecourt to the third largest surviving Roman arena in the world. The first century open amphitheatre ...

... their typical Bolognese sauce. I could have gone back another night for that dish!! Others had rabbit with potatoes, another had tortellini with butter and sage, and I don't remember the rest of the dishes. We had a nice amount of wine, coffee, etc. So this place was a wonderful deal for the quality of the food. After dinner I took a short walk while the rest went their separate ways, Colleen and Jim headed south and Pam and Gary headed north to their hotel.

... afterwards that I looked about five years younger, and decided not to shave again in a hurry. Dinner was fantastic. It was a place that I kept thinking we were going to get chucked out of - definitely too good for us. Me and Karim that is. His sister and Becca were more than suited for such high standards. We were just tourists. The next day we started giving some serious thought to our long-term plans. We were supposed to go from ...

June 10, 2002

Back on the bus! This time to Italy!! We went to Pisa (and had pizza for lunch!) We saw the tower, of course, and the church. Got to shop in the souvenir shops and sit for awhile in the sun. Very peaceful day. I can tell I'm getting tired, because the travel journal entries are shorter and shorter!




We were in ...