Bologna relaxation

We spend our day meandering around Bologna with little agenda as intended.  We picked up a couple 30 day SIM cards, unlimited data, for 32 Euro.  Good deal, works fine in my lady's phone but not mine.  Both iPhones purchased from Amazon, mine not as advertised.  Such is life, I will do without, there's no way I'm spending more money on my dang phone.

Where is Bologna you ask?

So we traversed the city just looking, the differences abound between a medieval European city and an American town.  The old buildings with the architectural detail of craftsman is so interesting to see, so many just take it for granted.  Near our hotel we stopped to check out the one of the canals

and naturally my wife the teacher found herself surrounded by a field trip.  Never fails.  But wait, this isn't Venice......canals in Bologna?  Yes, about 60km worth of canals began long ago (12th century) and were used for the silk industry among other things.  

Things weren't always as comfy in Bologna as they are today, there was a network of walls surrounding the city for security, and naturally entrances like Porto Govese to permit entry.  Its just an example of how the city has embraced it's past, this was built in the 1100's, and is still used today.

We strolled around town a little more, and made it to Basilica di Santo Stefano.  I'm not a religious man but I do enjoy art and architecture, and the churches have them both.  Basilica di Santo Stefano is set down a portico lined street that opens to a nice piazza.  

There was no entrance fee and only offerings to wander the church, we explored for about 45 minutes or so admiring the paintings and the floors, its really amazing to see the tile work on the floors from so many years ago.

I mentioned the porticos, these are such a simple yet important facet of Bologna.  There are literally miles (ok kilometers) of porticos throughout the city, shading and keeping you dry as you stroll through the city, enjoying all sorts of lovely things.  

A couple pics of some of the porticos, still looking for that right shot but here's a cool one of a corner:

We had lunch at RossoPomodoro, sharing a nice bufala mozzarella pizza and a salad.  Almost a scandal that I'm splitting a salad in the town of meat but I gotta get some veggies.  Town of meat, yea, I'll be sharing some pics of the macellerias in another post, stay tuned.

We did a bit of shopping for some Bologna FC wear as I have become a futbol fan, as well as some other gifts.  Cross your fingers you might get something too 😀  It was warm so we stopped into a bar to grab drink and made a slight mistake.  We saw the wonderful machine behind the counter mixing that yummy cold drink, crema de cafe, almost a coffee milkshake but about 10x better.  So we ordered 2 cafe crema, well guess what, those aren't the same thing.  So we got 2 espressos with a bit of milk, instead of the two cold drinks we wanted.  We laughed and the server explained that one is crema de cafe and the other cafe crema, coffee is quite important in Italy.  So he laughed too when we explained and naturally made us two additional drinks, on the house.  Cafe crema on the left, crema de cafe on the right. (this is the kind of error I'm all for)

Kathie is continuing to feel better, those grade A drugs and a no nonsense attitude make my lady into one you don't want to piss off.  However a little riposo is always good for the soul, and its vacation after all, so we rested for a couple hours in the late afternoon, enjoying the typical Italian custom.  We then made our way out to dinner, although our first choice was full so we made reservations for the next evening, and our second choice was closed for the day, so we happened upon another fine establishment.  I honestly think you could close your eyes and throw a rock in this city and eat at a better place than 95% of the restaurants in America.  Seriously, Bologna's food is the best.  We sat al fuori (outside) at Pappagallo, Kathie enjoyed tagliatelle local ham and I had tortellini with ricotta and pomodoro.  And the wine, the wine was lovely.

Its not everyday that I get to enjoy veal parmigiano Bolognese style so a secondi piatti was necessary.  It was delicious.

We had a nice first day in Bologna, not sure the step counter is exact but I was at 11,499.  I'm thinking I can have some more gelato!

Ciao a tutti!