Blogs from Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, Europe - page 12

Once again, I'm writing this in the future, but i really want to try and remember the highlights "for posterity" (as Pliny would say). Not that I am like Pliny, god forbid no. The best thing that has happened to me in Bologna so far was meeting two of the most wonderful girls I have ever known on my second day in our CILTA oral "exam". This exam was actually just a chat with the other students in the class (arent all italian exams?), and it wasnt until afterwards and people were milling around outside that i met Edie and Lotje properly. Edie is German, a law student, and Lotje is Flemish, doing a masters in Ancient History. I could never begin to describe them because it would be impossible to do them justice, i will ... read more

Back Home I am finally back home in Bologna and comfortably settled into my lovely new room in the student residences. I have had an unforgettable summer, three entire months of fantastic adventures from Berlin to Barcelona, Scotland to Sicily, the stunning coast of Croatia to the insane Greek Islands. It was all fabulous, but I love being settled in one place again, not having to live out of a backpack, wear thongs in the shower, spend nights on trains, buses, ferries, train stations, in parks, hostel dorms with weirdos, or hiding in a hostel common room because I haven’t paid for a bed that night. To not have to wonder when your next shower will be or if it is ok to wear the same top four times without washing it, to not have an ... read more

17 Sept 2008 Today the aim was to visit a mosaic studio southwest of Ravenna called Studio Akomena, then proceed through Faenza to Bologna, ending up with dinner at Bologna. The day started off poorly: we couldn't find the studio despite having reasonably good directions for it, and the Faenza Museum of Ceramics was actually (from our perspective) rather dull. I guess we're not really ceramics people. The small display of new works were quite interesting, but that was at the end of around half an hour of the kids already being bored from the long drive there. So we headed off and down a few blocks, aiming for the central area and some lunch. For some reason we kept striking out today: we struggled to find a 'decent' lunching spot, and eventually got back in ... read more

Hot and hungry we headed off on a bus into Bologna to find ourselves a bolognese, forgetting that restaurants close between 3 and 7. We tried in vain to find ourselves some food, grumpily i followed cat down road after road after road after road ... looking for a trattoria, biting my tongue so as not to start our first argument. Beer set me in a much better mood. Thats about all we have to say for here, it was a pointless hot and hungry stop... ... read more

We made some amazing distance today. From Ponte St Martin (in Valle De Aosta) to Castello St Pietro (just beyond Bologna). The ride was fine at first, via Alessandria rather than Milan, I had been warned about motorways near Milan, best avoided. From Alessandria towards Bologna, 2 lanes at first, light traffic, 120kmph, Slowly more motorways feed in, 3 lanes, 90kmph, then from Parma, 4 lanes and 60kmph. Plus accidents, zero kmph for bits, some nastily trashed trucks, but it looked like dazed truckers rather than anything worse, cannot be sure of course. Motorway code in Italy. Truckers, 90 to 100 kmph, predictable, though some need to take breaks earlier. Car drivers, the busier the motorway the more crazy they act. When the car drivers are at their worst the best plan is to join the ... read more