Travel and arrival
My lady is a trooper, she went to urgent care Saturday morning before we left America and was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection. They gave her drugs and said have fun, so we were off, not many other options.
We left the house at about 2pm Saturday EST and arrived in Bologna at 5:30pm Sunday. Long day of travel.
When we bought the tickets we wanted to ensure direct into Italy, Rome or Milan, as our first stop was Bologna. We searched tickets and airlines through numerous cities in the US, Atlanta, Detroit, DC, NYC, Boston, but ended up flying Air Canada through Toronto. The price, the timing and the fact that we were same airline for both legs, in case of delays or baggage, were the selling points.
I think I slept for a couple hours on the flight across the Atlantic, its always a tough go when people are talking, the seat belt light dings on and off, the announcements, but it is a must to ensure you can hit the ground and function on landing.
I was surprised at the customs processing for the journey, it was negligible honestly. In Toronto we scanned our passports and walked to the international gates, basically uninterrupted. At FCO in Rome the line was about an hour but we were asked zero questions, handed over the passports and they scanned them and we departed.
After looking for 20 minutes we found our flight had some luggage offloaded to a different bag claim, and while going to the lost luggage point I saw a person with a Canada flag running toward a different bag claim so I checked it out; we got our backpacks and proceeded to the train.
We caught the Leonardo Express to the Rome terminal, then made the train to Bologna with about 3 minutes to spare. We mistakenly sat in 1st class for a bit, until the ticket taker directed us to move, then had a quiet 2 hour ride to Bologna. The trains are much nicer than when we lived here back in the early 1990's.
Our hotel, the Zanhotel Regina was a last minute change when our reserved apartment notified us the AC was out. Its comfortable and well placed on Via Indipendenza, a 10 minute walk from the train station, longer with backpacks and not feeling well (she's tough), and about the same from Piazza Maggiore:
Tired as hell we had a good meal at Osteria 051:
Appetizer squacquarone, Kathie was not a fan of the cheese but I liked it:
When we bought the tickets we wanted to ensure direct into Italy, Rome or Milan, as our first stop was Bologna. We searched tickets and airlines through numerous cities in the US, Atlanta, Detroit, DC, NYC, Boston, but ended up flying Air Canada through Toronto. The price, the timing and the fact that we were same airline for both legs, in case of delays or baggage, were the selling points.
I think I slept for a couple hours on the flight across the Atlantic, its always a tough go when people are talking, the seat belt light dings on and off, the announcements, but it is a must to ensure you can hit the ground and function on landing.
I was surprised at the customs processing for the journey, it was negligible honestly. In Toronto we scanned our passports and walked to the international gates, basically uninterrupted. At FCO in Rome the line was about an hour but we were asked zero questions, handed over the passports and they scanned them and we departed.
After looking for 20 minutes we found our flight had some luggage offloaded to a different bag claim, and while going to the lost luggage point I saw a person with a Canada flag running toward a different bag claim so I checked it out; we got our backpacks and proceeded to the train.
We caught the Leonardo Express to the Rome terminal, then made the train to Bologna with about 3 minutes to spare. We mistakenly sat in 1st class for a bit, until the ticket taker directed us to move, then had a quiet 2 hour ride to Bologna. The trains are much nicer than when we lived here back in the early 1990's.
Our hotel, the Zanhotel Regina was a last minute change when our reserved apartment notified us the AC was out. Its comfortable and well placed on Via Indipendenza, a 10 minute walk from the train station, longer with backpacks and not feeling well (she's tough), and about the same from Piazza Maggiore:
Tired as hell we had a good meal at Osteria 051:
Appetizer squacquarone, Kathie was not a fan of the cheese but I liked it:
Start with the traditional. Tortellini in brodo and tagliatelle al ragu:
I also ordered guanciale di maiale, pigs cheeks with roasted potatoes, it was tasty but not a good look. It was with gravy giving the pork a deeper/beefy taste which went well with the red wine. Don't judge, I didn't eat all day :-)
Tomorrow is truly day one of our trip, looking forward to a relaxing day exploring Bologna.
Ciao
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