Adventures in Europe: Bologna, Italy

We managed to sleep in until well after 7:00 yesterday morning, which meant we had nearly 12 hours of sleep, so we were pretty happy with that.

After a great breakfast in the dining room of our bed and breakfast, we headed out to enjoy our full day in Bologna.

Bolgona's historical centre has 38 kilometres of porticoes--and apparently porticoes have been a iconic feature of Bologna for more than a 1,000 years!  The porticoes are so noteworthy that they are on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List.

Besides the architecture, we spent a lot of today enjoying the food and coffee Bologna had to offer.

We even ate at a place where you could order tortellini on a nice little self-ordering machine!

The real highlight was a bottle of local white wine at the Piazza Maggiore.

We broke up our drinking/eating with some walking, and we climbed the taller of the two towers for some great (albeit-somewhat-cloud-obstructed) views of the city.

Climbing towers is certainly my kind of tourist thing to do.  Hop-on, hop-off tour buses, less so; but, Diana persuaded me to give it a try.  It proved to be an okay way to see the city, but overpriced and not particularly exciting.  However, I turned it into a real highlight by bringing along a three euro bottle of red wine and drinking it in the back seat of the bus.  The highlights of Bologna proved all the more interesting when toured like this...

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Adventures in Europe: Bologna, Italy

Diana and I arrived in Bologna, Italy yesterday afternoon, flying via Amsterdam on KLM.  We are beginning a two week trip through Bologna, San Marino, Malta, Tunisia, Algiers, and Amsterdam.

Our jet-lag fighting strategy involved trying to stay up to a reasonable hour, so after checking in at our bed and breakfast, the Le Stanze del Carro, we headed out for a walk and some lunch.

Bologna's most famous landmarks are these two towers, and they are just a couple of short blocks from Le Stanze del Carro.

The smaller tower is leaning at a 4 degree angle, apparently a more significant lean than that of the more famous Leaning Tower of Pisa.

It was a beautiful afternoon, so we had to walk for a few minutes before we found a sidewalk cafe with an empty table.  We ate lasagna here and enjoyed live music performed by two elderly gentlemen, one on the piano and one particularly emotive one singing.

From lunch we walked some more, into the Piazza Maggiore, Bologna's main square.

Bologna's famous Neptune fountain is here, with the "spurting mermaids."

We sat at another cafe and had a coffee and enjoyed the late afternoon Sunday buzz.

The square and many of the streets were full of pedestrians and various street artists, including this tight-rope walking juggler.

Around 17:00 we took a few minutes to rest back in our room, before going for another walk in the early evening.

We were fading badly with jet lag, however, and did not last much past 19:00 before collapsing into our beds for good.

Adventures in Europe: A Trip along the Cote D'Azur: Nice, Monaco, Ventimiglia

When I planned this trip, I had intended to rent a bicycle in Nice and ride along along the Cote D'Azur through Monaco and into Italy.  Unfortunately, dark clouds and a forecast of thunderstorms changed those plan, and instead I caught the TER regional train at the Nice train station.

Less than an hour later, after a trip sometimes so close to the Mediterranean I could only see water out the window, I got to the end of the route, the first stop in Italy, a town called Ventimiglia.

From the train station I walked past the bustling market;

down to the seafront;

then across a pedestrian bridge over a little creek;

and up the hill to the old town,

with its pedestrian paths and alleys; 

old buildings;

and great sea views.  

I bought a postcard and mailed it from a little post office up there, then came down after about half an hour of walking.  

Back across the bridge, near the market, I found a restaurant for lunch.  I ate parmigiana, and the couple running the restaurant shook my hand and gave me limoncello to finish off the meal (I was their only customer, and they seemed very enthusiastic to have me).  

I walked back to the train station and took the TER back west to Monaco.

The Monaco train station is underground, and pedestrian tunnels with people movers lead out of the mountain towards the sea.  I had not even seen anything above ground yet and it was already apparent Monaco is a pretty rich place!

Once outside I found the Superdry store I bought my rain jacket from (just kidding, it is actually a knockoff from China).

I moseyed my way up a pedestrian pathway to old Monaco.

Along the way I had some great viewpoints to see most of the rest of the country below.

The old town is where the prince's palace is . . .

. . . as well as a bike-share installation . . . 

. . . and a place to plug in electric cars!

I wandered around the streets here for awhile until I heard thunder in the distance.

I decided this would be a good time to try Monaco's transit, so I boarded the bus #1 and went down past one of the yacht ports . . . 

 to see the casino.

The casino is not like any I have ever been in before!  Much classier and less welcoming than the massive obnoxious places I am used to.

I wandered inside, but turned back quickly because my attire was clearly inappropriate.  The weather was sort of indecisively nasty now, with sporadic rain and extremely loud thunder.  I decided I may as well head back to Nice, so I caught a Cote d'Azur transit bus back to Nice (only €1.50!), where I am spending a second night tonight.