Bologna

On the way home from Vicenza, Joel and I went to Bologna for the day. We got up and caught the 6am Eurostar into town, and immediatley began a search for coffee. We decided to get up to the main piazza first, get breakfast, then start our explorations. At this point, the rest of the group had scattered all over Europe for Fall Break.



Something about the morning light drew us down this alley, which turned out to be a magnificent thing! We had just entered the market district of Bologna. Bologna is very well known for it's culinary delights...now I know where these delights start.

Meat and Cheese Market


Fish Market...note the mosaic on the shop window.


Alley with vendors


The pasta market! It's all fresh hand-made! Wish I had a kitchen!



Produce!



After breakfast in a small cafe, it was time to check out the city. Our professor Phil loves this town, and had given me some ideas of where to wander. We first returned to Piazza Maggiore to discover beautiful morning light illuminating the orange-hue buildings. It is a very medieval space. The whole town has loggias, or walkways under arches, which all have a byzzantine flavor.


The main reason I wanted to visit Bologna was to see the Neptune Fountain. This fountain was in the contest in the Renaissance for placement in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. For some reason, even though this is considered a masterpiece, the proportionally incorrect marble statue presently in Florence won. I must say that this fountain is perfect in Bologna...since the entire city is orange to salmon in color, the blue-green patina of statues in this fountain really creates some visual excitement.


Neptune's head

Amazing marble step details on the fountain

Our first task was to climb the town tower to get our bearings, and for a bit of exercise. It is one of the tallest towers in Italy, and a definitely scarry proposition. You wind your way up on very small wooden steps, which creak and look like they've been there since the 1300's. Most of the time where there are not landings, you can see down through the center...but I tried not to look down! Above is a peek out of the tower on the way up.


Here you see Piazza Maggiore and San Petronio Cathedral


Amazing Byzzantine church with flying buttresses


This is one of the nicest rooftop gardens I've ever seen!


Here is a view of the tower. Note the shorter tower is leaning! I'm not so sure the taller one wasn't leaning too! Yes, we were on the top of that thing!



Incredible architecture


The turning Ginkgos next to the orange buildings blew my mind!


This is a typical loggia in Bologna. They are all paved with this beautiful terrazzo tile.


This loggia wins for most beautiful! Hand painted frescoes on the ceiling.


Bologna is exceptional in that there are actually street trees and landscaping everywhere. Here, some Magnolia grandiflora line a main street and frame the view to the duomo. The rusty hues of the bottom side of the leaves marvelously played off the orange buildings.


We found this nice courtyard with hand painted ceilings on the way back to the train. The lighting here was amazing. I definitely want to come back to Bologna and explore it in more depth...especially the restaurants!!!!!