Bologna is not that big, but we did a lot of walking in circles. We started at Piazza Maggiore, which is literally just steps from the hotel, and then climbed Torre Asinelli, which is this old tower that affords awesome views of the city. The stairs are steep and worn and narrow and one of us thought it was a lot more fun than the other one. We met another American tourist, who told us on the way down she was terrified the whole time.
We then wandered around what they call the quadrilatero, a bunch of streets that are essentially markets. So much pretty food, and aimed at the people that live here, not tourists. Bologna is not the mecca for tourists that some other Italian cities are.
I wanted to go to Piazza San Stefano, despite the fact that it's really just a city square. Lyle was not impressed when we got there and I explained that to him, so we went into the church there, which, while not on the agenda, wound up being one of the cooler places we visited. Very neat place, and we actually saw some of the monks (friars? priests? ?? robed guys who worked there...) doing things around the church. They had a whole room dedicated (I think) to Italian pilots who've been shot down? Further research is required.
After that we spent a ridiculous amount of time walking around looking for the Archiginnasio. I don't think we were ever more than one street away, but it probably took us an hour to find it. That was not helped by the fact that we got accosted by this crazy elderly couple. Italians, you ask? No, of course not. Crazy Americans. From Florida, they told us. Florida? Oh, we love Key West, we're there every Thanskgiving. They hate Key West... we have nothing more to talk about. They still kept us there for fifteen minutes. After that we did find place we were looking for, and it was worth wandering around for.
The Archiginassio is the oldest university in Bologna, and houses a really cool Teatro Anatomico which is an old autopsy suite used to teach anatomy. Super cool. Then we headed over to another room, more traditionally used for lectures, and still housing thousands of books, woo, heaven.
Our plan after that was to head back to the hotel for a break and then get lunch, but they were cleaning our room, so we just went back out, got a recommendation for lunch, wandered around way too long to get there only after it was closed, got another recommendation, never did find it, and wound up at this very cool little ristorante just before they closed. I had tortellini, Lyle had some mushroom thing, and we shared a bottle of wine. It was awesome.
Our plan after that was to hike up to San Luca - a church on a hill at the top of Bologna, accessed by climbing 666 steps under porticoes. We were told we should definitely get a cab there as it's quite the walk. So we did, but our cabbie took us to the top, instead of dropping us at the bottom. Oops! So we toured the church and then walked down and back to town, not feeling too sorry about having missed the 4k hike uphill.
When we got back to the hotel, I decided to print out train tickets since, you know, Lyle likes that sort of advance preparation. While we were there we heard a group of Americans check in, and when we finished goofing around on the computers and moved to up to where they were for happy hour, we rapidly got sucked into their conversation and wound up being the loud, crazy Americans in the lobby. He works for a small tour group here in Italy, focusing on food and wine tours, and his mother and girlfriend are in Italy for about two weeks. We had a lot in common and are headed out to dinner with them shortly.
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