Bologna

On Monday, we caught the train to Bologna, to spend two days in the city made famous by lunch meat.  We checked into a cozy hotel right in the city center, off Piazza Maggiore, the main square, and home to the suggestive Neptune fountain, and famously unfinished San Petronio Basilica.  As soon as we arrived, we left for a walking “gastronomic tour” of the city, where we learned about Bologna’s traditional cuisine, which is heavy on meats and fat.

prosciutto, salame, mortadella, formaggio

meat-filled lunch

One of the highlights of the tour was a visit to the Atti shop, which makes traditional bread, pastries, and pastas.  The owner explained the history of the family-run shop and the different types of products they make, letting us taste uncooked tortellini, meat bread, and cakes, which were all delicious, and made me wish that I had brought a bigger suitcase for a collection of food.  The last stop on the tour was a butcher shop, where we dined on a lunch of various sliced meats and cheeses.

That night we went to the home of one of our professor’s friends, whose family makes Fabbri liqueurs.  We tasted the cherry amarena, mixed with prosecco, and toasted our first night in Bologna, while snacking on some light antipasti: miniature pizzas and spinach rolls.  The house itself was also an attraction, with fascinating art and decoration all around.  The next morning, we had yet another city tour, but this one focusing on the history and attractions of the city, such as the San Petronio Basilica, the San Stefano church, municipal building, and university, which is usually considered the oldest university in the world, and has an ornate interior decorated with hundreds of crests of its past students.

old students crests

crests at the university

Though I had visited Bologna once before, I truly fell in love with the city on this trip, and not only because it was where we had the most fun (we met up with one of our classmates studying abroad there, and one of our favorite Italian professors on sabbatical).  It seemed like the perfect mix of historical and picturesque and modern, and was both traditional and filled with the vibrant young atmosphere of a university town.  Although it may not boast as many guidebook attractions as other Italian cities, Bologna seemed like a good place to go an spend a long period of time, without the swarms of tourists, but still with plenty to see and do.

San Petronio

San Petronio

On our last night in the city, as the snow that had begun falling earlier that day began to come down harder than ever, we trekked in a bus to a remote agriturismo to have a rustic meal.  We watched a pasta-making demonstration before sitting down for a long, though not particularly good, meal.  But our disappointment in the dining experience went to show how our group had truly become a piccola famiglia by that point.  What could have been a truly terrible dinner was filled with laughter and hilarity, proving that the company, and not the food, is often the most important part of the meal.

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