Ironic (Bologna)

Transit days always seem to tire us out, dear reader, so we do enjoy the later start to the day that is common in Italy. We did have plans for the morning although some of them were postponed in the knowledge we had a walking tour scheduled for the afternoon.

Early morning although the light is as soft as evening.

Initially we had booked the tour for the morning, but our guide obviously got a better offer and requested a change of time until the afternoon. It would be a little warmer but that was of no consequence. Instead we went in search of a supermarket and set out to buy some provisions. It was only a 10 minute walk but we discovered an Aldi on the way home that was closer and cheaper. It matters what you put into a Google map search. A "supermarket" search does not show Aldi. I imagine that is because they have not paid for the privilege. Remember when you could rely on Google? Those days are over.

We dropped the groceries at home and wandered the nearby markets. As I said yesterday, the stalls directly below us are an artisan market, all hand made goods. Across the Via Independenza, it is all clothing. Some 'vintage', mostly not. Without casting aspersions on the stall owners and their goods, I doubt that the name brand gear was genuine. There was no need to walk down every aisle and it was crowded.

The search continued to buy Jayne a new pair of Mizuno runners. I found a couple of stores that stocked the brand but their stock was limited and the quest was unfulfilled. We returned to the apartment to have lunch before we set out to meet our guide.

At the appropriate time, we wandered down a now familiar street of Bologna, Via Independenza, to arrive at our rendez-vous point, outside a bookshop near the Piazza Maggiore. No one seemed to fit the bill for our guide. Google maps suggested a (non-existent bookshop, how good is AI?) around the corner so we wandered around towards the fountain, featuring Neptune and his extended hand, still to no avail. A WhatsApp exchange sent us back to the original point, outside the bookshop where our guide, in green shirt, met us and ushered us back towards Neptune. 

Nettuno. OK Neptune and a tower and stuff.

The company we chose for our tour allows you to select your own guide. I'd rather pot luck because you are making decisions based on little genuine knowledge. We selected our guide on the basis of his passion for history, art and architecture … and he delivered in spades, for 36 minutes non-stop, providing “context” for the rest of the tour. To begin, we can acknowledge that much of what he stated, very categorically, and forcefully, was accurate but we were not here for a lecture. It was like we were being berated for being there for the wrong reasons. Not that he asked why we were there or what our respective backgrounds were.

Michelangelo (allegedly) aged 19.

You would recall, dear reader, how our guide in Milano was like walking the city with an old friend. This was the opposite. And it was by no means free.

We were told, in no uncertain terms, that the people, both locals and tourists, were ignorant of all that matters in Bologna, in our guide's opinion, and that while people may come for the food and some sightseeing, what really mattered and should draw crowds was the, unsurpassed in Europe, landscape of medieval/renaissance architecture that surrounded us. It is reasonable to point out that sometimes the finesse of language can get lost in translation. If that is the case here, it is lost, never to be found.

They love a tower here, he says disrespectfully.

In the course of this lecture, we discovered that our unrivalled talent continues – our ability to be in major places when the most major event is taking place. Our guide informed us that the madding crowds, ignoring the most significant aspects of the city, were in fact gathering for the impending feast day of the city’s patron saint, Petronio, outside whose basilica, we were standing. Bugger.

A horse staircase. Why not. Dogs go everywhere.

Eventually and thankfully, the lecture paused and we actually moved off to begin the exploration of the old town area which included the Sala Borsa and the Basilica which dominates the Piazza Maggiore. Inside the Basilica we saw incredible examples of mediaeval and renaissance art and wood inlay art to which very few people were paying attention, along with a sun dial timeline that stretched almost the full extent of the basilica floor.

Zodiac on the floor.

The eye through which the sun hits the zodiac line.

We were schooled in the particular use of terracotta and sandstone – not marble, that characterises the adornments of the buildings, all of which are basically in the original state, even though they are exposed to the elements. Interestingly the lecture on what should be appreciated and admired in Bologna greatly increased in volume when there was an opportunity to educate the groundlings around us.

Clay statues. It's so obvious really.

Once we left the piazza precinct, we moved to the world’s first non-monastic university which features shields that represented students from all over Europe and the anatomy theatre where autopsies were first demonstrated for medical students to observe. 

Shields above a staircase.

Real shields, not just painted versions.

He was about to walk us past the medical theatre, "unless you are a doctor" he threw over his shoulder. "I'm a doctor," I replied. That made him pause. "Not medical" I added. "Education" Jayne chipped in. Our guide is a university lecturer, used to haranguing poor 'uneducated' students and he suddenly realised we were educated.  Funny and awkward. For him.

The dissection slab.

The professor's seat.

There was subtle shift in commentary after that. At times he now explained he was being humorous or ironic. I doubted both, but it does provide us with an excuse to use that wonderful song by Alanis Morisette, Ironic, because the irony here is, it isn't and neither was our guide.

We also went through the church precinct where St Dominic is buried under a marble sarcophagus that was incrementally decorated by many artists, including Michelangelo and Nicolo. Again, proving our guide correct, we were almost the only people present and able to walk within centimetres of Michelangelo’s contribution to the resting place of the founder of the Dominican order. We didn’t get that close to The David in Firenze. To be fair, The David is a bit more impressive than a small angel.

Nice angel Michelangelo.

Perspective shot. Spot the angel.

Our tour also took us to the seven churches of Saint Stefano, each built around and over the other, and to the oldest house (13th century) still in existence in Bologna. We also learnt about the origin of the famous Bolognese porticos, born out of people trying to rort their land entitlements by building houses where the upper floors sloped out from the lower floors. Eventually, the powers that be told them they had to fill in the gaps with the porticos underneath or demolish their overhangs.

No portico.

The oldest house in Bologna.

Honestly, we can’t remember all the information that was delivered, gatling gun style, but we came away with the unarguable view that Bologna should never be referred to as “the fat one”, the food capital of Italy but the pre-eminent European site of Romanesque/Medieval/Renaissance architecture and art. At least within the hearing of guide.

I miss Roberto. Had we known that Bologna also has Greeters we would have contacted them.

The exterior of Basilica San Domeninco from the courtyard.

Ultimately we saw sights and learned things that a 'regular' tourist may not ever see or have explained to them. Firming in my mind is that Italy is in competition with itself. From our time in Lucca and Pisa it would appear that the whole of Tuscany is at war with Tuscany, metaphorically. Our guide today believed that Bologna deserves a higher place in the cultural pecking order and has been relegated to the idea of the "fat one" a food only destination. At one point he conjectured that this is a conspiracy to spread the tourist traps to different parts of the country.

Wood carving in a cloister seat.

Beside the lecturn.

Italy is a food destination. We came here for the history, the culture and the people. The wonderful food culture is a bonus, but it too is culture. The slow food concept; food the way it has been for generations. That too is Italy. And in a fast paced, ever rushing society, that is as important as the past, because it has the possibility of impacting on the future.

Past and present intersect.

Once our tour was over, exhausted, we wandered home to take a breath, congratulate ourselves on having been re-educated, unlike the great unwashed masses we passed throughout the day, and to decide on a suitable venue for a totally deserved drink (or two) and dinner. Happily, we settled on an Osteria not 5 minutes’ walk from home.

I think we deserve an honorary doctorate in the architecture and Bologna. Now, is that Medieval, Mannerist, Renaissance or Baroque? It's not a discussion for now. Ask any Australian politician, they'll tell you. it's too soon.

Tomorrow is the feast of Saint Petronio, patron saint of Bologna, so we will consider how best to spend the day while not being trampled by the ignorant crowds.

Alla prossima.

Fashion (Milano - Bologna)

And so begins a transit day dear reader. So far they have been benign, but you never know what's ahead. Today is also October 2, the day of the national rail strike. Well, according to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport site where all strikes must be logged.

We checked out of our hotel at 10am as required, facing a 90 minute wait for our train. Down one side of Milano Centrale is Mercato Centrale. Unlike Firenze, it doesn't sell a lot of unprepared foods, but there are numerous tables where you can sit and eat what you have purchased. Centrale itself does have more sit down food options than Roma or Firenze but we thought this would be more of a locals' haunt.

This proved to be correct and we easily secured a table in a quiet area. I did a quick reconnoître of the available food that we considered breakfast. No, dear reader, pizza is not a breakfast food. One establishment sold coffee and pastries. I suggested to Jayne that was the place to be and she went inside to see what they offered and place our order.

Would you eat here? Navigli.

That was not as easy as it would sound. It is the second time we have been confronted with the backward system of order and pay at the cash register. They provide you with a slip of paper that you hand to someone behind the counter. System mastered, Jayne ordered only to told there were no plain croissants despite a tray of them sitting on the bench. Whatever.

The coffee was good, the pastries, not croissants, were also OK. A quick check on the Trenitalia App showed our Frecciarossa was still scheduled to leave on time. Just prior to 11am, we decided to brave the crowds inside Centrale. Fortunately the App provided us with a platform even though the Departures Board did not.

Another fashion shoot in the Galleria.

At Platform 13 a Frecciarossa train stood waiting. We walked a little way toward our designated carriage and asked the Trenitalia staff if this was our train. It was and we boarded and stowed the bags. We pulled out of Milano 5 minutes late but clearly the strike information was on the website was inaccurate.

We are leaving the fashion capital of the world having carefully avoiding fashion week. Fashion by the brilliant David Bowie is our song title for today.

The journey to Bologna was about 70 minutes and we would be there well before our 3pm check in time. A quick message to our host requesting early access to our accommodation was met positively. Everything was progressing smoothly. And then we stopped in the middle of nowhere for 20 minutes. No major issue for us as we were not trying to make a connection to somewhere else.

Underneath a chandelier in La Scala.

Bologna

We arrived in Bologna around 1pm and headed to the Food Hall for a beer before wheeling our bags to our new address for the next 6 days. How easy it is to manoeuvre my new suitcase. It has functioning wheels and handles. So good.

We completed the check-in process while enjoying our beer and then walked the 6 minutes to our apartment. The apartment itself is everything you want. It is spacious and well appointed and extremely well equipped. Barbara, our host, left us a welcome bottle of wine, mortadella sandwiches, fresh fruit and pastries. We won't need to leave for days.

Our little street is a part of a larger market. The area across Via Independenza mainly sells clothes. Our side is more artisan. Hand made jewellery, wooden toys, woven woollen scarfs and the like.

via San Guiseppe artisan market.

Tomorrow we have a walking tour booked. It leaves from somewhere near Piazza Maggiore so we went for a walk there to see where we are meeting Riccardo and on the way home, we checked out dinner options.

Back at the apartment, I decided to book the restaurant because it seemed quite small. That turned out to be a good move. We saw a number of people turned away as we enjoyed our meal, a caprese salad, a pork cotoletta with potatoes and tagliatelle al ragu bolognese. 

There was too much food. It is easy to see why Bologna is referred to colloquially as the 'fat one' although it is also known as the 'red one' because of its terracotta rooves and 'the learned one' because it is a university town. Jayne has taken an instant shine to Bologna. We often say we will return to places we have visited but seldom do. I feel Bologna may be different.

On the way home, there was a protest march escorted by many police and a helicopter. Explaining the nature of the protest is not simple as it's roots go back to the death of a Moroccan migrant last year. The movement has now morphed to cover control by the state and other social issues.

The sun sets over Bologna.

It was Friday and night birds partied on until the next morning. Despite the double glazed windows I could still hear the revellers from time to time. The 1am fireworks were unexpected though and unrequired at that time of the morning.

Alla prossima.

Watch Over Me (Milano)

After such an epic day, dear reader, we opted for a sensible, more relaxed approach to today. After discussing the many options, some of which involved revisiting places from yesterday, but in more depth, we opted for canal country. Navigli.

Our hotel is in an excellent position near two Metro stations and Milano Centrale for heavy rail. Gioia was our Metro destination this morning, no more than a 5 or 6 minute walk. After a relatively crowded metro trip, we alighted right at the end of a street that led directly to the Grande Naviglio with its many bars, restaurants and bridges over the waterway.

At first welcome, it's not particularly pretty, but it is a night time destination when some of the graffiti would be harder to see. And you're not there for the bridge anyway.

Free woman? No comment.

We wandered past the dining options, having determined that we would have lunch here, particularly seeking out the 2 signature dishes, cotoletta di vitello and risotto alla milanese. There would be no trouble with this quest as almost every restaurant offered the required items on their menus.

While we were musing about the different lunch options, we heard chanting coming from the canal. On investigation, 2 boat crews of school kids were paddling their way up the canal, chanting to keep in rhythm. 

Stroke, stroke.

We continued down one side of the canal until we came to a small bridge, heavily adorned with the usual love locks, and crossed over to find exactly the same kinds of cafés and restaurants on the opposite side. This area is known as an evening destination for aperitivo and sunset watching - hence the proliferation of food and drink establishments. While it was pretty quiet now in the middle of the day, we could imagine the buzz later in  the afternoon.

Eat your heart out Paris.

We continued to the end of the Grande Naviglio and witnessed some more serious skullers racing down the canal while their coaches rode bikes along the adjacent walkways, shouting instructions. How could that pose a problem in a major tourist area? Rather than continue on, we decided to retrace our steps to have our lunch before the area became busy. Restaurant selected, we both settled on the cotoletta which arrived occupying most of the plate - a rather daunting prospect to consume but somehow we managed it. The risotto would have to wait for another day.

I'm not sure about serious.

After we had waded through the less than spectacular crumbed veal, we walked back along the canal to locate Vicolo Dei Lavandai, a small shed with cement blocks that was the site where men from the Brotherhood of washermen, or women depending on who tells the story, would gather each day to wash clothes. 

The washing stones.

Once we reached the end of the canal, we found ourselves at the junction of the other Naviglio, Parese and the old 17th century harbour, Darsena, the sunset vantage point. It was not sunset so we had no reason to pause and continued along to Piazza Ventiquattro Maggio, dominated by a large arch.

I've seen better positioned arches.

Although we saw a number of churches, we attempted to visit only one. It was quite large with extremely loud bells that continued to peal well after the mandatory twelve gongs. at midday. However, the entrance proved elusive.

We have another big day tomorrow (which concludes this post) so we returned to the Metro and the hotel to complete some domestic chores.

Thursday

Breakfast was planned for somewhere around the Cathedral zone. Roberto told us of a rooftop bar/restaurant that was directly opposite the Cathedral in a department store, reminiscent of David Jones back in Australia. However it would not open until 10am and the Metro had us in the piazza by just after 9am.

First stop was a return to the Galleria to snap a photo of the legendary bull without a queue of people trying to twist its balls into the pavement. It was much quieter than our previous visit but not deserted. Then it was out into the Piazza Duomo.

The bull.

A frescoe.

Entry or exit depending on your direction.

We circumnavigated the Cathedral to find our entrance point for the Duomo walk. There are three separate entrances but only one has lift to the rooftop. Our entry point located, we were advised to arrive 30 minutes before our scheduled time, even though we had purchased "fast track entry" tickets. 

My suggestion of breakfast in the Galleria was met with disdain when Jayne saw that a caffé was €5. So out into the piazza we walked and looked around for a suitable café. It was a street away from the tourist hub so maybe the prices would be more reasonable. Can you hear me laughing, dear reader?

The food hall.

Breakfast: two espressos and two very average croissants came to €18 because I wouldn't change venues. When the department store opened, just after we'd finished breakfast, we made a beeline for the food hall. Coffee was €1,50 and the food looked delicious. Ah well, next time.

At 10:30 we joined our 'skip the line' fast entry to the Duomo. Every time I looked up there was another carving staring down at me. Which is the segue to today's title Watch Over Me by Bernard Fanning. With the gargoyles pointing directly down on the queuing lines, it would have been interesting to see where the torrents of water would have landed had the day been inclement. 

Yes, I'm watching you.

At exactly 11:02am, we entered the lift to the roof. There was a lift attendant. What an inspiring job riding up and down all day in a crowded lift. She was managing to keep herself sane by not taking her eyes off her phone screen as she operated the lift.

The Duomo was crowded, as you would expect, crowded with the insta and tic toc crew, blocking every available passage way while their long suffering partners snapped away until an acceptable image was acquired. I feature in many photos having moved to zero f*** mode. That or I want to be a social media star. You decide, dear reader.

I love a gargoyle. Imagine if it was raining.

The structure of the Cathedral is complex - amazing and beautiful. There are so many statues and gargoyles and arches and spires. In one area, it looked like a series of stalactites that went on forever. Different parts of the roofscape are under reconstruction. The whiter sections of newer marble obviously stand out.

Despite the very rigid dress code, particularly regarding footwear, some women disregarded the rules and were allowed to wear thongs on the very slippery marble. Sadly, while we were there none fell to their death, although I did want to nudge a couple closer to the edge.

Walking from the lift takes you around three sides of the Duomo, up a flight of stairs (complete with warning sign for those with heart conditions) to a central space where, happily we got to join the queue that heads down. As we waited for our time on the stairs, members of a tour group commenced joining the line in front of us because other members of their group were there. The line at this point resembled a snake that had swallowed an emu egg. There is no point arguing with the ignorant but I do find it frustrating.

The few stairs we then descended led to another walk along the side of the Cathedral roof, ultimately to a set of stairs that Jayne thought were descending into hell itself. They went on and on, you know, like the song that never ends. Eventually we were spat out into the Cathedral proper. Jayne was unimpressed with the interior compared to the exterior. However, I love a stained glass window and they nailed it in that regard. The largesse of the exterior is replicated with an interior full of massive ornate support columns and with a capacity of 40,000!

The organ and dust covers.

Columns everywhere.

Behind the altar.

Part three of our Duomo tour was in the crypt. The crypt is not your usual one; in Milano, it is an archeological display. As is the trend in Europe, everything is built on something else and churches, particularly, use this method. A pagan temple can be re-birthed as a Christian church. One church uses the foundations of another as is the case here.

Sarcophagus in the crypt.

The baptistry.

Drainage.

The final part of our tour was the Cathedral Museum across the piazza. It was filled with pieces from within the Cathedral as well as the outside.

A wood model of the Cathedral.

Statue after statue.

They had some cool tapestries too.

And a Tintoretto.

Some dude.

That's enough of that religion for today; it was time for another religion, opera. Back we went through the Galleria to Piazza La Scala. Timing was perfect because it wasn't open for a fully lighted viewing for much of the day. 1pm was the Goldilocks zone and we made it. After we worked around a tour group blocking access to the ticket office.

We purchased our tickets from a very happy man who sang to himself while the tickets were printed. Onward and upward. I'll let the photos tell the story.

Recorders locked away. The way it should be.

The waiting room.

The royal box.

The stalls.

Prep for tonight.

What an angry person.

Next stop the Parco Sempione. The one behind the Sforza Castle. It wasn't as large as I expected although it contained things not on Jayne's map, like some sporting arena. There was a good view to the triumphal arch and once photographed we just followed whatever path took our fancy, with the aim of getting to the arch.

Is it real?

That didn't happen. Apparently we should have zigged when we zagged and the arch remained some distance away. Having chalked up 10km we called it a day and navigated to a new Metro station to head home. Via Aldi of course to buy some sub €5 wine.

Hello.

We discussed dinner options and decided to eat at home and use up our previous purchases. Tomorrow is a transit day to Bologna. the dreaded October 2 'strike day' that nobody seems to know about. Except Jayne.

Alla prossima.