Blogs from Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, Europe - page 5

Wednesday 31st October 2012 is the start of my voyage to South Africa but more importantly it is the 9th birthday of my grandson Leo! First stop Toys Centre in Ferrara to chose his present then pizza for lunch all together and this afternoon Francesco will drive me to Bologna Airport to catch the 1855 BA to Heathrow. Andrew should be there to meet me ( otherwise I'm going to have a lot of space in my cabin aboard MSC Opera!) and then we transfer to GAtwick and stay in our 'cabin' at the Yotel there. Weather today in this part of Italy is cold, wet and grey and weather forecast in London for this evening is cold, wet and grey! Due to fly out of Gatwick with BA to Venice at 0740 tomorrow, transfering to ... read more

Dear Max and Dominic, Last Thursday it was a public holiday in Bologna because it was "La Festa di San Petronio" so we went to explore our city a bit more. We are starting to understand better why this city is such a good place to live (although right at this exact moment, at midnight on Sunday night with pretty awful loud Italian music coming from the apartment right next door so I can't sleep, I'm not sure everything about Bologna is so perfect). Scattered through the city are lots of little places called "Piazze" or piazzas. Not "pizzas", but places like the Square used to be in Christchurch. They usually have a cafe like the one in the picture and they are surrounded by nice old buildings. The one in the picture had some very ... read more

Dear Max and Dominic, It was a little bit sad to leave Barcelona at the end of last week - it meant the end of our holiday and the start of work again, and I ended up enjoying living in Barcelona very much. At the start I was a bit nervous because I was worried about stories I had heard that there are lots of thieves in that city, especially in the area we were living in, but in the end I thought we were pretty safe. I was also a bit nervous about coming to Italy because it is harder to live and work somewhere rather than just visit as a tourist, but I think we will be fine. You can see that the streets of Barcelona's old town (where we were living) are different ... read more

This weekend we went to Bologna. We left Friday afternoon, and caught the fast train. We were able to get there in little time. We spent the rest of Friday walking around the city. One of the distinctive features of the city are its approximate 30 kms of colonnades, the longest being 3.8 kms, starting just outside the city wall to the Basilica of the Madonna of St Luke. On Saturday, we took off on a walking tour of the city. The tour included the Basilica of San Petronio, the Palazzo dell’Archiginnasio, with its anatomical theatre, the two towers and the Basilicas of Saint Dominic (founder of the Dominicans) and Saint Stephen, with its complex of 7 churches. Amongst the highlights of this tour were the anatomical theatre Archiginnasio, and climbing the Arsinelli tower, at a ... read more

Note: All events mentioned in this entry occurred back in late February 2007. For more updated trips and entries, please refer back to this entry at a later date. An updated trip or entry will NOT include a note like this. Thanks and enjoy! The next day, I check out of the hostel around 8 AM GMT and head to the train station, where I buy a train ticket from Florence to Bologna. My train finally arrives 30 minutes later, and is a fast train. About an hour and a half later I arrive in Bologna and take a taxi to my hotel, which is under heavy construction and renovation. By the time my room is ready and I put my luggage up it is 2 PM GMT, therefore all I have very limited amount of ... read more