The first picture is the four of us with Momma Gina (and her daughter) at her bar/restaurant in Volpaia (the town with 30 residents). I love this picture. If there is anyone that I would have to put a face with the name "Momma Gina", it would be her. The second picture is the four of us with Fernando after dinner in Montefiorre.
Tuesday evening. Bologna time.
Kind of on a whim, we (Benny, Justin, Molly and I) decided to go to Bologna. (*Note: When I say kind of on a whim, I mean we decided the day before. I don't think that qualifies as a whim, but whatever. Moving on...)
The train from Florence to Bologna isn't bad at all. An hour and a half on the slow train, or less than forty five minutes on the fast train. In a valiant effort to save some cash, we decided to take the slow train which was four times cheaper than the fast train. Anyway, we had roughly six hours in Bologna until we had to catch our train home. We met up with one of Justin's Italian friends (I'm pretty sure he only has one Italian friend) who actually lives in Bologna--this friend did a foreign exchange program in the States--and he showed us around the city for a bit and took us to University of Bologna's campus. It turns out the University of Bologna is one of the oldest schools in Italy.
First impressions of the city:
- Go there on a rainy day because all the sidewalks are covered by the buildings.
- Much smaller and less touristy than Florence
- People drive a little slower, though not much.
Bologna was really cool. I don't think I would enjoy spending a long period of time there, but it was definitely worth the trip. Also, when I say all the sidewalks are covered, I mean they are literally all covered. Whomever hired the urban planners really did not want any sunlight. Or maybe s/he wanted to stay dry. I can really only speculate. I love both of these next pictures--the first is a street right by campus, and the second is a picture of a nun walking down the street. There were so many nun sightings. To be honest, I don't think I've seen one nun since I've been here, and I saw somewhere on the order of ten in Bologna. Maybe they all fled there?
So we walked through the piazza in the center of the city. Very cool and very beautiful. Although, I don't know how many central piazzas I can see before they all start looking the same. We then walked over to the UofB campus. It had a very UW-Madison feel, but the architectural style was in tune with the rest of the city. Scanner Dan and Piccolo Pete would have fit right in.
Afterwards, we walked around the market, bought some bread, smelled some fish, and failed to accurately count the number of pigs hanging from the ceiling. One thing is for certain, there were many pigs...or parts of pigs.
Then we had a very mediocre dinner at the only restaurant that was open at 6:00 pm. After dinner, we went to this bar that Justin's friend showed us earlier in the day. The bar was in a church...legit in a church. Talk about irony... It was actually awesome though.
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