We slept well in our loft room and, besides breakfast did what all good lightweight travellers do and did a load of washing. Then we were off to the tourist office to make a few arrangements. We bought the Welcome Bologna card, booked a walking tour for 4.45 and asked them to book us a cooking class for Tuesday or Thursday - it ended up being Thursday.

We began exploring the Piazza Maggiore with an audio tour I had downloaded at home, and began to get a sense of the splendour of medieval Bologna, and its uneasy relationship with the Popes - a motif that was to recur all day. We had our first coffee overlooking the Basilica of San Petronio, Bologna's patron.This broke all our rules because (a)we were at a table rather than the bar and (b) it was in the most touristy of areas. However, it allowed us to sit in comfort as we listened to the commentary. We then did the next few stages of the audio tour before visiting the Basilica itself. One of the most fascinating aspects of the church was the meridian line which uses a beam of light which hits a metal line inlaid in the floor to mark midday each day of the year - an extraordinary feat of astronomy and building for the time. Then we went to the Archiginnasio - the building which held the first consolidated site for the University, including the fabulous anatomy theatre. This was a further manifestation of Papal interference. At one blow he could monitor the lecturers of the university and curtail plans to expand the basilica to be bigger than St Peter's in Rome. You can actually see where the basilica was truncated! A sadly familiar story:-(

We were true to form for lunch, walking about 10 minutes away from the centre to find the Cafe Jus Morandi where the coffee that cost 3 Euro in the morning was 1.30 Euro, and the whole meal - 2 coffees, 2 panini, a large bottle of mineral water and complimentary biscuits came to 11.50 Euro.

Thus fortified, we climbed the Torre Asinelli, all 498 steps of it, and a particularly gratifying experience for Anne whose tower climbing showed all the benefits of a great knee reconstruction and a good fitness regime!

Shopping and a short break, then what Anne describes as the most delicious gelato she has ever had, before the walking tour by a well informed guide who never have us her name. She did provide us with an excellent overview of a great range of Bolognan culture and history in a short time. A key find was the food markets, to which we shall return, and the Basilica di Santo Stefano - actually a complex of seven churches created by the great Saint Petronio as a kind of recreation of the Holy Land - described by the guide as a kind of ecclesiastical Disneyland for the Middle Ages. It took months off the time of pilgrimage and came with all the indulgences.

Time for a beer/ arrianciata and stuzzichini on the way home. The Jawbone Up, a lovely Father's Day present tells us that we walked 14 km today- but then my feet could have given me a pretty good approximation too!

We have confirmed an excursion to Parma and Modena on Thursday, so the week is filling up, with tomorrow for further Bolognan exploration, a morning of cooking on Wednesday and departure on Friday for Milan.