Bologna

Ciao ciao!

So, woke up early again on a Saturday for the Rutgers planned excursion to Bologna.  A little background for you, Bolonga is the capital of the Emilia-Romagna region and is a little over an hour north of Florence.  It is supposed to be one of the best cities to live in, in Italy due to it's location (between the Po River and the Apennines mountains, and at the intersection of many main highways and trains) as well as it's strong industry.  

Our first stop was this little school, nobody is quite sure what the name was.  Samuelo (tour guide) talked about how the architecture of most of the buildings in Bologna are all brick.  This is how Bologna became known as "the red city," and this happened because brick was significantly cheaper and more accessible than marble during the time when the city was being built.  So at this school were many tombs, which are apparently found all over the city near schools, of esteemed professors.  It's what they do there, they save the dead bodies of great professors.  To each his own.

Next stop was the Basilica of San Petronio which is the 5th largest church in the world.  When this church was being built in the 1300's the original plans for it would make it larger than the Vatican.  The Pope wouldn't have any of that so he had it truncated (cut the top off) and halted any future construction.  Anyway, inside the church was gorgeous, and it had about 10 or so mini side chapels.  Each one was decorated very different than the next, one was bright with stain glass windows, the next was dark and dreary.  There was also the world's largest sun clock in there which was really neat but complex, and no I couldn't tell what time it read.

The next stop was my favorite, The University of Bologna built in 1088 and is the oldest existing university in all of Europe.  It was beautifully decorated and I had to keep reminding myself that people actually went to school here!  They specialize in Law, Medicine and Humanities... I could totally go hereeee.  My favorite room was the Anatomical theater which there are only 2 others remaining in the world (Netherlands and Sweeden).  This one was actually reconstructed after it was destroyed in WWII but with all of the same pieces.   It was a huge all wooden room with benches facing the middle where there was a marble table on a raised platform.  The professor would sit at the head and instruct the TA's what to dissect in teaching the class Anatomy.  So cool, and it's still used today.  Famous graduates that I recognized: Dante and Copernicus.

After the university we broke for lunch.  We were told to try the torellini because that as well as Bolganese sauce is what Bologna is famous for.  We pick this cute little trattoria and of course I decided that since Jill was getting the toretllini I would just taste hers and get the Dill marinated Salmon because I have been dying for seafood.  Bad move Gulutz.  It comes out and at first I thought it was raw.  Apparently it was smoked, oh and cold, like lox, but I didn't have a bagel, oh, and I don't like lox.  It was served over a bed of julienned veges.  Boo.  I tried it, I ate a little bit, but Jill was nice and shared her exquisitely delicious homemade tortellini with me.  

After lunch we climbed one of the two towers of Bologna, yes all 480 steps.  By the way, the tower is leaning and a lightening rod had to be installed as it was frequently struck by lightening and caught on fire.  It was well worth it though!  The sight from the top was gorgeous, overlooking all of Bologna.  

The last stop was the Santo Stefano church.  I'm not really sure why this one is so famous.  It does contain a sepulcher which has the exact replica of the exterior of Jesus's in Jerusalem.  It was the least fancy of all the churches we've been to, and very dark.     

Samuelo, the same guy who gave us the tour of Rome was our tour guide again.  We weren't thrilled because he speaks mostly in Italian and you really have to focus on what he's saying to get it.  He studied history and architecture in school and knows a ridiculous amount about both, and so he told us all of that...every....detail.  He lost a lot of us because he just kept going not realizing that we weren't all as intensely interested in the gothic pillars as was he.

So that was our day in Bologna, I really enjoyed seeing the city but it was definitely not as much of a tourist city as Rome.  Maria (our coordination assistant) said she lived in Bologna for a little while and thought it was a much better city to live in than Florence.  Florence tends to be a heavily toured city (which is great since I'm only here for 4 months) but she said she'd prefer to live in Bologna.  Guess what they say about the city is true!

Pictures from Bologna (click, it's an album): 

09-02-21 Bologna