Grand Elite Bologna

... easy and not force myself to run up and down mountains! It's okay to take a day off I beleive. In acknowledgement of my cold, I decided I should have a proper meal at a proper table, and just enjoy some good food!<br>I ordered what is considered a pasta that is chacter to Ferrara. and It was breaktakingly sumptous! A type of ravioli with Pumpkin inside drizzled all over with a butter and sage sauce. I ate these ...

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 language. Gherardo was a willing wealth of knowledge, and taught me that if a man in Italy is wearing a bespoke suit, he unbuttons the last button on the cuff of his suit, to signify this. I started looking for it and saw it all over the place. <br><br>After dinner we rushed to catch our train back to the hotel, but we missed it. It was close to midnight, and no more trains. After haggling with ...

... I gave up after a couple of attempts and waited down the bottom. We slept in the car and for once we woke up freezing - I suppose that happens when you are surrounded by snow capped mountains. They close the ski lifts at 1pm so we returned our boards and made our way down. Luckily we didnt go down any earlier because one of the gondolas down had broken mid way and there was a big rescue mission with helicopters dropping guys ...

... to my side. The receiver dropped it, and while I diagnosed the play, I was slow to break up but when I finally did I came up and gave the exposed receiver a pop as he bobbled the ball. I wish it would have stung him a bit more, he didn't even go down - bringing the wood isn't my specialty, but it was fun and funny to get a clean shot on a receiver. Two plays later they tossed a Hail Mary right at me. I thought for a second I was going to get an interception ...

... for the same type of work. So for them the cost of living is quite high. This is largely due to the change from Lira to the Euro when the cost of products and services doubled and the wages stayed the same. Often the women don't tend to work, or to only work part-time - and this includes younger women in their 20s and 30s. They often stay home and manage the household, though the men do help out round the house. Despite this, women are very independent here and ...

... huffing and puffing, we make it to the train station at 6:15. Looking on the board for the train to Bologna Center Station...it is no where to be found on the one board so we run to the next and check that, no luck. So we manage to ask a custodian (since there were no train workers in sight of course)...and he told us that the Bologna Center stop was on the route to Milan Center (of course we didn't have anyway of knowing this)...and he told us in Italian. So ...

... university came to an agreement. The students would come back if the university would build a church in remembrance of the Spanish student they had killed. The church is no longer there, but this piece of art was originally in the church. Isn't that an interesting story? That's why I love guided tours. Next, we went downstairs to see more professorial things. I don't know what the correct name for these were, but they were ...

... area, and how the duration spent in each section was driven more by how long we were interested in staying rather than a pre-determined timetable. The only rule was that we weren&#8217;t to touch anything. I&#8217;m sure the workers hate it though, with these nosey visitors having so much freedom to get in their way while they&#8217;re trying to work. <br><br>With the Research and Development and Formula One sections strictly off-limits, the first stop after a ...

... for dinner. It&#8217;s a beautiful spa town and smells good! I took a long walk through the park and had a Gran Marnier on the patio. Peggy had Amaretto which pleased the bartender/host. He didn&#8217;t like my ordering a French liqueur! The hotel was one of the nicest on our tour. <br><br>We left our window open and it was actually cold when we got up!