I had one major goal today: eat spaghetti bolognaise in Bologna. To this end we packed up after a quick breakfast, switched on the car's air conditioning and bade farewell to magical muggy Venice. We took the back roads to Bologna to see a bit more of the countryside than we would have on the highways (which are also tolled, by the way). I won't say much here about the driving itself, but leave you to infer our experience from the learners' test we managed to find and translate (the next blog entry). Unlike the other countries up north, the corn here looked mostly all harvested and the colours of autumn were beginning to show.

We got to Bologna at about 1pm and began the hunt for a place to park. Somehow we managed to find our way into a series of inner city "roads" (I use the term loosely here) that got smaller and smaller with no way out as most of them were one-ways leading you in a set direction. We eventually came to a dead end and realised we were on a scooter only road. Oops! We then successfully reversed the wrong way down the one way road and found our way out. The restaurant hunt took equally as long as finding a park as no place seemed to serve the city's signature dish, but we didn't give up and were rewarded in the end when we found a cute place that had both tagliatelle bolognaise and tortellini bolognaise (tortellini was also invented in Bologna) washed down with a shared half-litre of wine. The waiter was a bit surprised when we didn't order more wine but then realised that we weren't Italians and didn't drink like them. Or at least that's what we think he said as he only spoke Italian and we communicated mainly with gestures :)

A brief side-track: On many occasions among the McGirr whanau, food is discussed and there is great debate about which ingredients are core to a dish and which aren't, depending on whether you visit the website what-you-want-to-hear.com or if you prefer what-you-need-to-know.com. The burning question for the day was of course, what goes into a bolognaise, and my Dad will have great joy in learning that his sources were correct (hehe - his sauces were correct) and that a bolognaise has no garlic. Apologies to the rest of the family who won't hear the end of it I'm sure. And extra apologies to Gwen for mentioning our dessert, which was panna cotta and tiramisu. Yum!

Once in Florence, we set up the tent (without the fly as it was too hot) and set off on foot to see the town. The campsite was on the side of the hill and we had fantastic views of the city, which has a landscape famous for its massive church and general prettiness. Other than being tooted at by a horse carriage, not much exciting happened in Florence, but we did have a great time soaking up the ambience. There were heaps of naked people, mainly men, surrounding most old buildings, the most famous of which is the replica of Michaelangelo's David standing in the same spot as the real thing used to. The original is in a museum in Florence which we were too late to see. Also of note was the bridge where shops hang off the side and all sell serious bling bling.

- Brett