Day: September 12, 2017

 

 

It’s the end of the day and I’m tucked into bed. I just checked my iPhone to see the miles walked and it registered 7.8 miles, 17,289 steps and 38 flights of stairs. I’m not especially surprised by the mileage, because I read that the average tourist in Paris walks eleven miles a day, but the stairs?  How did this happen?

We climbed a hill to get to the top of it, to see the Sanctuary of the Madonna of Saint Luca. We walked the porticos to the top.

 

Beautiful Bologna is full of wondrous sights, including porticos, arcades that intersect  the city.  The city fathers may have provided these covered arched arcades to protect the citizenry from the extremes of weather, but it is said that the original idea was for shopkeepers to add space for trade in their stores. Originally made of wood, they became a fire hazard so from 1568 on, they had to be built from brick or stone. The city has 25 miles of these structures.

The Portica of San Luca runs three miles, from the Arch Melancello – we took the #20 bus from the historic center to the site  – to the Sanctuary at the top of the hill, a distance of 2.3 miles covering 635 arches – all uphill. This is the longest set of porticos in the city and was a challenge to us. The reward? Seeing the views and the sanctuary, which were spectacular.

 

Sometimes the incline was a little steep, other times it was gentle, and there were sets of stairs interspersed, always with hand rails. We met people of all ages and countries on the journey. We persevered. We succeeded.

 

I think  this qualifies as a kickass adventure!

The church was small but very ornate at the high altar and the profusion of marble was astounding.

Then we went back down the hill, which was much faster!

After we returned to the city center, our next stop was lunch on the Via Santo Stefano, which was a newly renovated section of town, not far from the center. Many of these buildings housed palaces of the rich which over the years fell into disarray and have been transformed into restaurants, galleries and chic shops.  There are also a few government buildings among them.

We had a delightful lunch – tuna salad and house white wine for me and melon and prosciutto for Ann-  and I chatted with three high school students who were on an educational trip to Italy.  I didn’t recognize the language they were speaking, but they spoke English to our server. Their language was Serbo-Croatian!  Nice kids.

There are kids everywhere in this town!

We strolled down to Piazza Santo Stefano, leading to the Basilica of Santo Stefano,  a complex of medieval churches. Of  seven original churches, three remain. dating from the 5th century. The first church was unlike anything I’d seen before, with rough stairs leading to the altar.  It was dark and foreboding, unadorned except for a huge crucifix. Going down and to the left, we passed through another ancient church with a cylindrical form, passing on to various courtyards. The designs of the brick architecture were intriguing and a bit perplexing. If you’re interested, Google the site for more information.

One hightlight: a cat in one of the courtyards. Obviously it belonged here.

Our last stop was for dessert at the best gelatoria in town, on via Castiglione. We came, we saw, we ate! Delicious.

 

We returned to the room for a rest, then went out later for a light supper and a glass of wine in the neighborhood followed by – what else? -another small stroll through the half-lit streets and back alleyways of beautiful Bologna.

 

Yes, 7.8 miles. It adds up…

Buononotte!

 

 

From the bathroom, no less!  Ann and I made all  our connections easily and met at the Bologna airport. We took a shuttle to the third atop, as indicated on the hotel website, with the help of a very nice driver who didn’t speak English but spoke French, and got a taxi there. There was a bookshop at the taxi stop and the kind lady there, who spoke neither English or French  helped us to call a taxi. Five minutes and 10€ later, we were at our hotel.

 

It’s called Hotel Novocento and it lives up to its name. Though the outside of the building is ancient, in the small, charming Piazza Galileo, it’s very modern on the inside and is centrally located to all the major attractions.  Our room is pictured on the site, if you’d care to look. It’s the only twin-bedded room with the white wooded sloping ceilings with shutters, which we kept open. We have a long bench under the eaves – there’s one window in the bedroom and two huge ones in the bathroom, one in the shower!!

The town is a gorgeous Renaissance masterpiece and one can almost imagine Romeo and Juliet flirting in the square. There are present-day Romeos and Juliets doing that now, as it is a very important center of learning for italy. There are kids EVERYWHERE!  I thought I was in campus at Berkeley!

We wandered the central area and strolled for a few hours, then settled in to a restaurant called 015, noted on the map as “a favorite” and it was truly wonderful: we split a lasagna bolognese, and we split a caprese salad, with freshly picked tomatoes and basil, accompanied by buffalo mozzarella cheese  I had a glass of vino bianco of the region, and Ann had vino rosso, also local –  perfect!  The lasagna was not like the American version : it was subtle and not heavy at all. We both sighed when we took our first bites!! Amazing. The price was also amazing, very reasonable for the quality of food.

We strolled back in the dark, the mere few blocks to our hotel, thinking we’d suddenly gotten into a time warp, as the illuminated Renaissance buildings guided our way home.

I managed to get myself a shower; after no sleep in either the ten-hour flight from San Francisco to Paris, or the almost two hour flight from Paris to Bologna, my mind and body shut down at 10 pm. I woke at 2:00 am and assumed I’d not return to the land of slumber; however the next I knew it was 6:30 am  – hooray! I slept better than usual for the first night  I’ll check in later today – or maybe tomorrow morning – and let you know what happened on day 2 of the trip.