That is Just No Bologna!

Day 9, Padua to Bologna to Ravenna

 I’ve been wanting to go to Bologna for a long time.  I had a Bologna mission.  We were not able to make it on our last trip, so I thought we would try again this time.  After all, it is right in between Padua and Ravenna….

But after our bad day in Padua, I was feeling much less adventurous.  Rick Steves thinks Bologna is charmless and gives it one half a paragraph in his book.  I had less notion of how to get to Bologna than I did for Padua.

This is where the Blog Fodder stepped up.  He read that half paragraph from Rick Steves, he read the chapter from the Lonely Planet Guide.  He discovered something very interesting.

There is a Fountain of Neptune in Bologna.  It was built in the 1500’s.  It has a big old statue of Neptune and at his feet, there are four water nymphs.  Since it is a fountain, the water nymphs, um, squirt water from their um, chestular area.

 

Suddenly, BF has a mission of his own for Bologna, we are going!

 

So he looks at directions on the internet and makes a plan.  He lets me know I am looking for A1 or E74 towards Bologna.  Now, those are directions I can follow.  I can look for Blue A1 signs, and Green E74 signs and the word Bologna.  There was a train station in the directions somewhere also….

 

We found it without too much trouble and grabbed a parking spot and paid for 2 hours of parking.  We started walking in the direction we thought we should be going.  We decided to stop for lunch and something to drink.  We walked into a bar, a non-English speaking bar. 

The owner was THRILLED to have two Americans in her bar!  She had a huge grin on her face and offered us TOAST!

Toast in Italy is a funny thing.  It is not a piece of warm bread you have with your eggs at breakfast.  It is not an ooey, buttery toasted cheese sandwich.  It is two pieces of bread with some meat and cheese in the middle, lightly toasted on the outside.  No butter, no mayo, no lettuce, no tomato….

 

But it is Italian bread, meat and cheese, so pretty good!

We enjoyed our lunch and asked for directions to the Fountain. (Dove’ Piazza Maggiore?)

 

Now the challenge in asking an Italian directions, in Italian, is that you may or may not be able to understand the answer.

She raised her hands like she was waving a jet liner in for a landing and said: “Dritto, Dritto, Sempre Dritto…non sinistra, non destra, Dritto….”

 

We got the idea, it was straight ahead!

So we went past this construction

 

And saw these towers…apparently plumb bobs and T squares were not invented in Italy

 

And were greeted by these friendly guys

 

 

Ciao!Ciao!

 

And got to the fountain.  We have close ups, but this is a family-friendly blog….

 

We also saw a moving tribute wall to the people killed in the resistance during WWII.  (Stef, this time the Italian Fascists were the bad guys, not the Germans!)

 

 

 

We then found our way back to our car, just as our 2 hours were up, and headed out of town to Ravenna. After some yummy gelato of course!

 

But before we go, some street scenes of Bologna.  We did not find it charmless at all

 

 

 

 

 

 

The BF said we needed to take a right and then a left and we would be heading SouthEast.  Somehow we managed to be heading NorthWest, but we got it figured out without too many wrong turns!

And my Bologna mission?  Accomplished!  But you will just have to wait for Christmas to find out about that!