Bologna

Bologna--where they're not shy about their feelings!

Strange bread baked for charity.

Following the night of the earthquake, we took an early train to Bologna. We discovered that Italian trains are different from French trains – all seats are in sets of four around a table (there are no side-by-side seats only) and when you buy two tickets on-line, they assign you seats across from each other, not next to each other. So that meant our seats on this train were across from each other and we were seated next to two late-30s men who kept up a rather loud conversation in Italian the whole way. Moreover, soon after we got on, one of them pulled his backpack down from the overhead rack and pulled out a can of beer for each of them, along with a big bottle of limoncello (although they didn’t drink that). Quite a way to start a Sunday morning! But it gets better. After they quickly finished those beers, they got up to go to the snack car and came back with two more beers which they quickly polished off! While they were gone, the young woman and older couple in the set of seats across the aisle from us were very apologetic for (and a bit appalled by) the behavior of these two gentlemen, which was quite nice of them. Fortunately, Bologna was the first stop and only about an hour from Milan. The young woman got off there, too, and as we waited in the vestibule of the car for the train to stop, we had a nice conversation in broken Italian about Bologna and the region.

Bologna's loggias.

The day in Bologna was the first, and really only, day of bad weather on the trip. It was cloudy and overcast and spit rain most of the day, although it got worse as the day went on. Fortunately, many of the buildings in central Bologna have loggias covering the sidewalks out front, meaning the only time we got really wet was crossing the street. Many of them were very pretty, with patterned paintings on the underside--a much better view looking up instead of wet rain clouds.

Yes, it's as delicious as it looks.

As we walked through the city streets, we discovered there was a street market going on, as well as some kind of event in front of city hall. A man with a microphone was addressing a large crowd of people. We have no idea if the street market is a normal Sunday occurrence in Bologna, but regardless, Lisa took advantage of it to buy a big ball of cotton candy. And it was entirely delicious! (Added by Lisa, of course).

Two towers. They don't actually lean.
They are just very tall, and the wide-
angle lens is to blame.

One of Bologna’s claims to fame is that it’s the home of Europe’s oldest university, dating to the 1090s. We tried to go see the medieval anatomy lecture room, but it was closed on Sundays. In fact, many of the things we tried to see were closed till 3 on Sunday afternoons, meaning we spent a lot of time shopping and sitting in cafes to escape the rain! But we did see the Two Towers, two massive towers right next to each other which are all that remain of the scores of medieval fortification towers in the city. Each aristocratic family built its own defensive work around their house, making for a lot of fortifications! Everyone in Bologna was glad those didn't tumble in the quake.

Pilate's courtyard. Oh, Church tradition, you're so funny.

Cloister of San Stefano.

We visited San Stefano, which is a very interesting place. It’s a series of seven churches all connected to one other, each one from a different time period and in a different style. For example, there’s one very bare, small, simple basilica that’s one of the earliest churches in the city. There’s San Stefano itself, which is a 12^th-century miniature replica of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. There’s a courtyard, called the “courtyard of Pilate” because there’s a big basin in there that, in the Middle Ages, was believed to be where Pilate washed his hands of Christ (even though it’s actually from the eighth century and from northern Italy!). And there’s a cloister attached, which was once part of a neighboring Benedictine monastery. It was a neat place and reminded us a bit of Mont-Saint-Michel in that it was full of unexpected new rooms.

Outside of San Stefano was a bake sale benefiting something, and so we purchased one of the little breads they were selling. You can see it in the picture at the top of the page (no, not the fancy fountain one), and if you want to know what it tastes like, imagine eating a salt-free saltine inside of which someone placed some wonder bread. Pretty tasteless and certainly could have used some jam. However, we helped something by buying it.

San Domenico's tomb.

We also visited the Basilica of San Domenico, which was largely late Renaissance and early Baroque and not very interesting, aside from the fact that it houses the tomb of Saint Dominic, founder of the Dominican order of monks in the 13^th century. The sculptures on his tomb were done by different artists at different times, but a couple are by a young Michaelangelo. Many people were fascinated by this, and lots of tourists were walking around. The monks were setting up for a service during the end of our visit, so we were rushed out.

Bonus picture: elevated law professor's tomb outside of
Basilica San Domenico. They don't bury professors
like this anymore!

Children playing some sort of something on stone balls
at San Stefano's. Note the red buildings in the background.

The other major church we visited was the Basilica of San Petronio (where no pictures were allowed), an early 4^th century bishop and patron of Bologna. It was an odd place, very long and tall but narrow and done mostly in red brick and white plaster. In fact, Bologna’s nickname is “red Bologna,” partly because so much of the city is built of red brick and partly because it has a history of voting for communist candidates for national offices. There wasn’t much in the way of interior decoration, but they do have a Foucault’s pendulum set up in a side chapel, a long string with a ball set up to swing from a fixed point in the universe, not the point where the string is attached to the roof. (It’s difficult to understand – I don’t really get it myself!) They also have a meridional line on the floor, meant to tell what day of the year it is based on how the sun comes through the windows, but we couldn’t really figure out how it worked.

Pre-dinner treat: fruit candies.

Finally, for dinner, we went to a trattoria near our hotel recommended by the desk clerk. It was a crowded place, partially with locals, partially with tourists. I tried pasta with bolognese sauce (Bologna’s other claim to fame) that was quite good. We were seated next to a young solo Kazakh woman who started talking to us. I think she was lonely. She owned a clothing store in Kazakhstan and was in Italy for a week doing some buying and checking out the latest Italian fashion. She was quite nice, albeit a little awkward. Now, thanks to a trip to Bologna, we can say we’ve met someone from Kazakhstan.