La Grassa

We have been gone from home for six weeks now, and I have to say we are beginning to fray a little around the edges.  Nothing serious, but I caught a cold and can’t find the post cards stamps I bought, and Josh seems to have left his calculator in the last city. 

In spite of the cold and my cold, Bologna has turned out to be far more memorable than I had originally expected. The reason Bologna ended up on our itinerary at all was because Josh wanted to go to the Lamborghini Factory and Museum, which is in Sant’Agata, or about 21 miles from Bologna.  We knew before we left the U.S. the factory was closed to visitors for renovations, but we decided to make the effort to still go to the museum.  It is clearly a car-geek’s heaven, but even for a totally not-into-cars person like me, it was interesting.  Gorgeous sleek cars, with original designer’s renderings, and well-displayed black and white photos of the history of the company, made it a refreshing break from the rather steady diet of dark and menacing architecture.

Josh checking out a Lamborghini in front of the Lamborghini museum.

Over the years, Bologna has picked up many nicknames:  “the learned one” (la dotta) is a reference to its famous university.  The University of Bologna is the oldest university in the world, founded in 1088, and boasts of an alumni list that includes Dante, Copernicus and Fellini.

"The fat one" (la grassa) can refer to its relative economic prosperity or to its rich culinary tradition. In terms of cuisine, my cold may have turned into a small blessing.  Thursday night I asked the guy working at the front desk for some suggestions as to where we could eat dinner close to the hotel since I didn’t feel up to a long hike late in the evening.  He gave me a list of five suggestions all within a block or two of the hotel.  That night we ate at a small restaurant called Il Grottino, just around the corner from our hotel.  Nobody there spoke English but with some pointing and sign language we managed to order a pasta with ragu (meat sauce, not the nasty stuff from a jar) and I had steak prepared in balsamic vinegar, and Josh had a margherita pizza with extra garlic.  The only mix-up was we each got a serving of the pasta, instead of the single serving I had tried to order - figuring Josh would have part of mine.  Josh ended up taking half his pizza back to the hotel, which was then safely tucked into the mini-bar frig for the next time he experienced extreme hunger. (Which happens about every two hours.) Besides the good food, this restaurant provided some great people watching.  I particularly enjoyed observing the 70-something age woman, who was having dinner with what I assumed was her 50-something age son, and having a very animated discussion.

Friday night we ate at San Luigi, which is right next-door.  We were the only people in the restaurant at 7:45 (it just opened for dinner at 7:30) and remained the only table for most of our meal.  The host, perhaps owner, spoke English quite well and was a passionate rugby fan.  (As was evidenced by the restaurant’s décor consisting of black and white rugby photographs.) I had pumpkin ravioli for the pasta course, and veal stew for the meat course.  Josh had “macaroni and cheese” (it goes without saying, which bore no resemblance to the scary stuff that comes out of box) for the pasta course, and a meat and fried potatoes for the secondi.  The meal was served with a delicious homemade focaccia with coarse salt.

Had we walked to the city center and gone to one of the highly recommended restaurants, we would have paid much more and most likely not have had the quality of food we were served.  I am also reasonably sure we would not have been treated as kindly.  (I also appreciated the fact that in both places the televisions were on and the staff were watching food network type programs when we arrived.) 

The other nickname for Bologna is "the red one" (la rossa).  This originally referred to the color of the terracotta roofs in the historic centre, but is also a reference to the fact the city was well known as the bastion of the Italian Community Party.  When searching the Internet for information about the city (Rick Steves doesn’t cover it!) I came across a great story about a Senegalese storyteller who had visited the city and was asked about his observations.  He said, "In Bologna, I saw a clean and tidy place where old men meet in the morning to talk about politics. They leave that place only to go for a coffee or a glass of wine in the bar next door, then they return".  I have no idea if the “animated” conversations we observed were about politics or something else, but still I would have to agree with the storyteller’s description. 

Saturday morning we set off to find Piazza Maggiore.  I had hoped to see a few punkabbestia (Italian slang for a punk accompanied by a dog), but instead saw more fur wearing fashionistas accompanied by dogs wearing clothes.  

Piazza Maggiore as seen from the top of the Asinelli tower.

The city of Bologna is arranged like a mandala, or pizza cut into slices, with Piazza Maggiore in the center.  Close by are two towers, both of them leaning, that are the symbol of the city.  They are located at the intersection of the roads that lead to the five gates of the old ring wall. The taller one is called the Asinelli while the smaller but more leaning tower is called the Garisenda.  Josh climbed the 498 wooden steps up to the tope of Asinelli, and shot a number of photographs and video from the top.  From his aerial perch he could see the bicycle spoke like roads extending out from the center to the periphery.  Since I get vertigo on glass sided escalators, I wisely chose to stay on the ground, and viewed his photos once we safely back in the hotel.

We also made one last stop at La Piazzola, the historic flea market that has been in Bologna since 1219.  This was entertaining on many levels.  It is only open on Fridays and Saturdays and we just happen to stumble into it on Friday, then needed to make a return visit on Saturday.  There are beautiful cashmere sweaters in one stall, then bins of one Euro sweaters in the next.  There are venders selling dollar store type merchandise and next to them, people selling winter coats and designer boots.  The shoppers are equally diverse.  I really wanted to snap a photo of some of these elegant mink coat wearing women digging through bargain bins of sweaters – but it was just too crowded to get a decent photo.

La Piazzola

Tomorrow we head for Firenze (Florence).  We will actually stay there for five nights, which pleases me.  Travel days my anxiety level goes up and I just expect things to go wrong.  So far they have not, but that doesn’t seem to assuage my anxiety. 

On a positive note, Josh and I are finding a rhythm to traveling together that works for us.  We have also crossed the halfway mark for the first stage of this journey.  In two weeks, Bob meets us in Paris.  From France we travel to Israel, and from Israel we will return home to re-group before heading to China.  Home to spill out a suitcase full of memories, and prepare for the next stage.