We stuck with this plan and purchased tickets yesterday to head up to Bologna today. We caught a mid-morning train which got us into Bologna shortly after 11:00 AM. Before we left the train station, we purchased our return tickets and wandered around looking for the tourist information office. I never did find the tourist information office but the guy at the left luggage area gave me a photocopy of a map, so we made do with that for the day.
It seemed like we spent a long time wandering the train station before heading out... this of course led to Trevor and I being bored, which resulted in me taking pictures of Trevor standing around awkwardly:
We soon set off for the center of town, window shopping along the way. At one point, the window shopping led to Trevor purchasing a present for Kirsten. (Kiki: I hope you like this present. It's a little ridiculous but I have to admit, I only encouraged him.)
We reached the Piazza Maggiore in the center of town and had fun looking around at the various buildings and squares adjoining the piazza.
I really liked this statue of an angel:
There was a quartet playing an interesting combination of jazz/bluegrass/Italian folk music, and we listened to them for a little while. This little girl seemed to be mostly transfixed by their music, as well.
Many of the streets were decorated for Christmas. This picture doesn't capture it particularly well, but a lot of the shops had lights up, and there were lights and evergreen boughs spanning the street.
Bologna was a really fun city to walk around, for a couple reasons. The old city, in the center of town, had a lot of pedestrian streets with fun stores for window shopping. Also, the city is famous for its porticos, which we really appreciated. The rain held off for most of the day, but the porticos meant that there were wide, dry sidewalks - a welcome change after spending the week walking "duckling style" (in a single file line) along Florence's crowded and narrow sidewalks.
I had a brilliant plan that we were going to eat lunch at a restaurant called Osteria Broccaindosso, which was recommended by my guidebook as a good, authentic restaurant a little off the tourist path. Totally committed to this, I marched us down along Strada Maggiore until we were sort of in some random residential district. I wasn't worried, though, because the reviews I had read online cautioned that it was somewhat hard to find. It wasn't until we had wandered up and down the street a few times that I started to question my restaurant picking skills. I pulled the guidebook out of my bag to make sure we were on the correct street.
Now, before I go any further with this anecdote, I want to mention something that's wonderful about traveling alone: you never have to admit when you're wrong. It's beautiful. You don't even have to admit it to yourself! You can be walking along, watching your plans for the day slowly unravel, and rather than thinking, "Hmmm, I should have found this on a map/asked for directions/left a half hour earlier/done some research on this/bought my ticket ahead of time/set an alarm clock," you instead can think, "You know... I didn't really want to do this anyway!" You might have to glance shiftily around to see if any locals have noticed that you are incredibly lost and are rotating your map around and around in your hands, but for the most part, you can stuff the map back in your bag, turn on your heel, and head for home, pretending that the whole excursion never really took place. Best case scenario, you discover something else to do while you are slinking home from your failure, and you can pretend that was your plan the whole time.
So, I was dismayed to find myself at such a crossroads... with Mom and Trevor looking at me expectantly, hoping for some lunch. You see, even though the entry for this restaurant was only four lines long in my guidebook, I managed to miss the line saying that it was only open for dinner. I momentarily contemplated trying to convince everyone to walk up and down the street for another... seven hours... but instead had to own up to my mistake and admit that we'd need to find somewhere else to eat lunch.
We walked back up Strada Maggiore and wandered through a Christmas market. One of the stalls was quite long and sold every possible Nativity figurine you could ever need:
(I like all the angels hanging from the top shelf.)
We found a little wine bar/restaurant, which I have tried to remember the name of/find online but have managed to fail at both, which is sad because it was really good! Shelley, you would be incredibly jealous if you knew how much browned butter with sage I have been eating. Trevor and Mom gave good reviews to their dishes as well, so WHEW lunch disaster averted. We lingered a while at lunch and then headed out into town to find some dessert.
We went to a bakery stall which drew us in with its colorful display of marzipan fruit. The watermelon was not the most realistic looking but it did look the most cheerful to me!
We purchased some pistachio... things... and took them along for the long(ish) walk back to the train station. We arrived about half an hour before our train was scheduled to depart so we sat on a bench to enjoy our dessert.
Trevor failed to understand that when I say "just act natural", I actually mean "just act natural and photogenic." Here's Mom and Trev enjoying their pistachio pastry things.
We all agreed that we were not fans of the high speed train for two reasons:
- No Garrett's popcorn sold at the train station
- Fast train meant no time for a train nap
I sorted out my ticket to Rome for tomorrow evening - I'll be going down late so that I can catch my flight to Madrid in the morning - and we came back to the hotel. Tomorrow we will go to Christmas Mass at the Duomo (!!) and have Christmas dinner at a restaurant. We are excited for this restaurant because so far, most of the restaurants we have attempted to go to have been (a) closed, (b) non-existent or (c) both closed and non-existent (somehow). But we have reservations at tomorrow's eat-shop so woo-hoo!!
Mom and Trevor will depart early on Sunday morning, and I'll head to Madrid to meet up with the wonderful Scott Eisenhardt, with whom I'm joining forces for an adventure in Morocco and Spain. I'll try to post some Christmas pictures tomorrow before I leave!
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