Il Canale 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! <br><br>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 ...

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.

... an hour. No one follows these limits. I know because Mandi and I found ourselves on such a road, on singlespeed step through bikes, getting passed by Porsches, Minis, and giant semi trucks headed north at 100 km an hour. At first we thought it would get better. Then we resigned ourselves to our fate. We were going to do this, no matter how crazy it was. And that's how we ended up biking nearly ...

I will have to write entries for the last 10 days of adventures. We went to Rome, Vatican City, Innsbruck, Salzberg, Germany (to see Eagle's Nest-Hitlers) and then Zermatt.<br><br>Home today and I have no more minutes on cell. If you wish, you canphone the bologna home since we stay home tomorrow to unpack, rest, laundry and grocery shop.<br><br>Best adventure was the overnight triple bunk train from Rome to Innsbruck.. Kids giggled the ...

... and quality (of writing, he's a much better editor). We met them, all nice guys and then Squale said about the bill, "we got robbed, we barely ate anything (which was true)." The owner asked for thirty Euros from each person. Going into the dinner I expected 20 euros maximum, especially being invited guests. Rolling with Squale I had never paid more than 20 euros for a heck of a lot more food and drink. Squale was heated, so were the rest of our guys, I wasn't ...

... new friends will be with us from now to eternity. We hope that this blog has been informative not only about our activities and wanderings but also about life. Like Peter Pan and Wendy, we now must grow up, get a job and return to the normal activities of daily life. But like Peter &amp; Wendy, when we are alone in bed at night and just before going off to sleep there will always be images, thoughts and sensations of this journey that will bring us back for but a moment into its joy.

Our night on the town in Bo-Town. Our last night as the Virginia group together as tomorrow, Rose and Jim will be off tomorrow to have some family adventures while everyone else goes to Venice then Florence. OK, so we can't make it to Stromboli, but we will go to B-O-L-O-G-N-A. Somehow I think that Oscar Mayer will be replaced with ...

... in 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. <br><br>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 ...

... it was planned to be bigger than St Peters but the pope ordered the construction to cease half way through, so it would have been bigger, but you know how men are about those things. The Fontana del Nettuno (Neptunes Fountain) was also quite interesting, picture 4 lucious voluptuous Italian women grabbing their own breasts forcing streams of water to cascade from their nipples to the pool below, apparently they each symbolize the great rivers of the 4 known ...

June 10, 2002<br><br>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!<br> <br><br><br><br>We were in ...