Bologna was a bit of a filler city to replace the destroyed Cinque Terre which I'll have to return to Italy to do with Zara or Mum one day.
We were very excited having booked
a really cheap but really nice looking hotel, a nice break from hosteling. We knew it was a bit out of town, but had no idea it was technically in a different town, 5km from Bologna.
Anyway we were looking forward to two things in Bologna - Ferrari museum, and Spaghetti Bolognese. Turns out you need to OWN a Ferrari to visit the museum, and they don't like Spaghetti Bolognese there - it's a Western invention. They only like lasagna, and lots of it. We did however enjoy the idea that anything from Bologna is technically Bolognese, so we ate pasta bolognese as well as pizza bolognese, gelato bolognese, even water bolognese!
We made it from our hotel in the wilderness to town one day, and saw a monument called the 'two towers'. Far from being 'Lord of the Rings' related, the towers were more related to the leaning tower of Pisa - one of them is on a significantly larger angle. It's a wonder it isn't more famous.
Bologna is renowned for it's live music, and so we found a concert at what we thought was a club but was later described as a 'social scene' where we bounced to Italian hip-hop and 'French militant reggae dubstep'... Because when I dance to dubstep I want to hear about how capitalism ruins everything? Wrong time wrong place I think, but the preaching wasn't in English so it wasn't a big drawback. This 'social scene' was a strange place, particularly because it was a social scene for humans and canines alike, with about ten stray dogs running around yapping at each other for no reason. They didn't bother the people and the people didn't bother them. A few hours later an elderly man approached us at an all-night pizza place and told us that we were the future. We decided that was a good moment to wrap up the night and hunted some cabs to make the trek home.
And that was Bologna. Quite like Grenada in that we spent like 40 hours there and saw none of the town, but better than expected nonetheless. Who knows what I might have been typing now had we been to the Cinque Terre instead...
Anywho, no use crying over spilt flash floods - besides, Venice and our first campsite experience awaits.
Aidan out!