Executive Hotel Bologna

... I am encouraged that I will soon be arriving with family. I can put my travel miles card away, put my feet up and have a proper vacation. Because as I've been saying to some people. This is not a vacation, it's Hard Work!

I arrived in Ferrara at 5:30ish on Monday evening, It was already starting to darken, the skies saying goodnight for a while. I found my hostel with only asking one person for ...

... even though you may have paid for first class passage you may find (as we did on the trip to Venice) that no seats are available. We ended up sitting in separate second class seats on that trip.

Our tickets showed our seats were in Coach 1. I assured Joanne we must make sure we approach the train from the front, assuming Coach 1 would be immediately behind the engine. Of course, that wasn’t the case. On this train Coach 1 was at the ...

Ferrara is a Medieval town that dates back around 1300 years when Ferrara was a Byzantine military fortified city. In 1115 Ferrara became a free commune and in 1135 the Cathederal was built.

The driving was flat and the highways were fast with lots of speeding passers. The parking was limited at Ferrara and the complexity for the parking signs left us concerned while we were touring. The parking spaces were tiny and many of the vehicles were dented and ...

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.

... cabbies, who would not take us, we found a gypsy cab and Mandi bargained him down to a 35 euro ride home. And that's how we ended up blasting along the very roads we had biked earlier, in a random cab just hoping to get home. And we did, he dropped us off right in front of our door.

The next day, we were headed for the Cinque Terre, and I'll tell you more about that in the next.

Jael

... Lei di solito va in un albergo quando deve prolungare la sua permanenza nella capitale per lavoro. Ammira la mia organizzazione del viaggio.. Per fortuna avevo calcolato il tragitto da aeroporto a stazione con i mezzi pubblici, e probabilmente non avrò bisogno di molto per trovare il treno che va in città.. Ma non si sa mai. Saluto Yulia, e scrivo a Viktorya, altra donna conosciuta in questo meravilgioso monod virtuale che è internet, e le chiedo se sa come arrivare dall ...

The timetable said I could get from Lucca to Ancona in the day and make it for the ferry, but I don't trust Italian time-keeping so decided to get to Bologna for the night. The train journey was slow and uneventful apart from a couple of lads getting on. Drunk (or ...

... che parola strana penso io, ma Josep dice "Ah, e aixugamans in Catalan!" Non é giusto perche prima da venire, io ho studiato piú, ma lui capisce quasi tutto ed é piu avanzato studente che io. Fa troppo freddo qui, e io soffro molto, ma ho usato il freddo come escusa per comprare piú vestiti. Si possono trovare i vestiti no troppo cari ma belli qui facilmente. Josep mi ha ...

... saying goes that the predominant red tones of the city's architecture are made manifest in its political leanings as well. Apparently the region was a stronghold for the anti-fascist (and thus often Communist) resistance in World War II, but then decades as a huge student center probably only helped to drive that point home even more. Once again, I find myself in a superb old town filled with beautifully-preserved architecture and a fascinating history ...

... 20,000 was very impressive and Hoges and I explored it for quite some time. Though it now functions as Verona’s opera house, both of us independently came to the same conclusion that it could also be put to a slightly different, less Italian, use: Its mini-Melbourne Cricket Ground proportions were absolutely perfect for a game of backyard/park cricket with a large group of friends or extended family.

As it got dark we were walking against the ...