Imperial Bologna

... to see where the magic happens. How a small family could produce some of the most expensive balsamic was amazing. No wonder the industrial version is meant to be cheap.. it really is. But the traditional version takes so much time and a lot of input from the family that produces it. This family talked about the tradition of passing something onto a family when their children get married. They had been working on their daughters vinaigrette for ...

Special dinner in Bologna tonight. A must do while here. Found a small trattoria and ordered tortellini in soup broth, tortonelli (large tortellini) filled with ricotta and parmesan, and veal cutlet stuffed with proscuitto and topped with butter cream sauce. Filling and delicious food and all traditional foods here. How they aren't dying in the streets of heart attacks, I have no idea. Must be the wine and espresso. Off to beautiful Cinque Terre tomorrow!

We said "arrivederci" (bye) to Venice with a final vaporetto ride down the Grand Canal to the train station. Two hours later we arrived to a completely different region of Italy. Bologna is located in the Emilia-Romagna region. This is the breadbasket of Italy where much of the produce is grown and is also home to prosciutto ham, parmesan cheese, and basalmic vinegar. After four days in Venice, Bologna is like cold water poured on ...

... not necessarily better or worse). The days of slinging a bag over my shoulder and not caring about anything were replaced by short trips on weekends with a constant voice in the back of my head telling me I should be back in time to do some work on Sunday night. With a relatively small student body that I saw daily and a generally fashion-conscious society, I suddenly cared again about what I wore in public. With a relatively comfortable room, I was less willing ...

... note
about Bologna is that it has the second most leaning tower, after Pisa.
Later in the afternoon we stumbled upon a celebration in the public
square. There were rollerblading figure skaters, drummers and lots of
speeches.



That evening we had Thai food at one of Peterīs friends places. It was
so delicious after only eating pizza, pasta and gelato for the last
three weeks. The next day I said goodbye to Peter and headed to Rom

... seen quite a few churches in Italy...             The weather in Bologna was absolutely terrible because it was extremely windy, worse than Petaluma at the end of the day by the airport even, and freezing.  We attempted to walk around the Chiesa di San Domenico to see the back of the church but we were basically blown backwards and had to turn back to go to the front of the church.  When we got back home to Florence though, it was just as win

... or something, but regardless, the exterior does not prepare you for the experience when you walk inside. All of a sudden... WOW. It's BIG. And really impressive. I took two illegal pictures inside because, despite them making a big fuss of it outside, someone got their telephoto-lens SLR camera in and was just waving it around in front of people working inside, and they did nothing, so I figured hey, I'll take some ...