Month: May 2018

Motor City Modena

Friday 4th May 2018

On our final day in Italy, we took another train trip, a short distance to Modena. It’s about as far as from Twickenham to Waterloo, but Bologna and Modena were rival cities in the Middle Ages and fought several battles. In Modena town hall they still have a bucket they captured from the Bolognaise, it must be one of the oldest buckets in the world and a very unusual battle trophy.

 

 

The city is much smaller than Bologna, and it not so much on the tourist trail, but it deserves to be. It has the same style colourful old houses that Bologna does, all in shades of orange and yellow, and some porticos running down the streets. One of the main streets is a covered canal, Modena was once an inland port like Bologna. I visited Milan a couple of years ago, and it has kept some of its canals, which are now lined with bars and cafes.

Oh, I forgot to mention that there are factories that build Maserati, Ferrari and Lamborghini cars near Modena. But I’m not interested in cars so I didn’t visit the Ferrari museum. Yeah I know they are all red and pretty and fast and all that, but no use at all for shopping at Asda.

On Corso Canalgrande a group of middle-aged men stood in front of a statue singing Nessum Dorma. The statue was of a big man wearing a tail suit, it was Luciano Pavarotti. He was a local boy who did pretty well as a singer, although he never actually advertised Cornettos.

 

 

Close by the statue was the municipal library which also houses a museum of Figurina. I had never come across that word before, but it means small printed images of people. The museum was created by Signor Panini, the guy who sold sticker albums to the world. He clearly liked small printed images of people and sold gazillions of cards featuring footballers and pop stars to generations of children. It was a small museum, but worth a look around. One of the biggest collections was adverts for Liebig beef extract. Herr Liebig invented a method to turn cows into the liquid beef extract and built a big factory in Fray Bentos in Uraguay to make it. In the days before refrigerated ships, it was a way of turning meat into a product that could be shipped to Europe.

 

 

The tourist information office is in the ancient townhall in the main piazza of Modena. It has a very peculiar smell, because several square metres have been excavated to show archeology beneath. Consequently, the office smells strongly of soil and old walls, a bit unusual. The info told us that Modena is famous for Pavarotti, balsamic vinegar and the Ferrari museum, which I knew already.

The town hall is still home to civic functions, but also has a few historic rooms filled with old portraits, a huge Venetian chandelier and the famous Bucket of Bologna. It is safely enclosed in a thick glass case, they don’t want those sneaky Bolognaise stealing it back.

 

 

The other main attraction in the piazza is the Duomo, a Romanesque cathedral from the 12th century. It is clad in grey marble and has a soaring tower with a tall steeple. The cathedral is being restored, so the nave is full of scaffolding.

It has some exquisitely carved marble lions at the entrance, but the sculptor had obviously never seen an actual lion.

Modena has a superb indoor market with stalls selling fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, pasta, fish and everything looks so tasty!

 

 

We stopped for an ice cream at a gelateria next to the Ducal Palace, a huge Baroque palazzo that was home to the Este Dukes of Modena between 1452 and 1859. It was lovely to look at while I licked my double scooper of lemon cream and ginger, mmmm. The palace is now a military academy, and while pretending to photograph the building, I snapped these officers. They looked very snappy, they are Italian after all!

We caught the train back to Bologna and collected our bags from a bike hire shop that doubles as a left luggage store. The airport bus took us out to catch our flight back to Heathrow,  and to complete our adventure we took the 490 back home to Twickenham.

 

 

 

 

Walking to San Luca

Thursday 10th May 2018

We scavenged the fridge for left-overs for breakfast; chopped apples and yoghurt, breadsticks with cream cheese and cherry tomatoes. A weird combination, but it worked quite well! Our hostess had recommended visiting the Sanctuary of San Luca, and early 18th-century Baroque church on a hill overlooking Bologna. The walking route took us through the city centre to the Saragossa gate, one of the gates in the city walls that were demolished in the 19th century. After the gate, a colonnade begins which goes on for 2.3 miles and is the longest in the world! The first part is flat and like most of Bologna’s colonnades is on the front of shops and houses. Then there are steps upwards to a bridge that crosses the road and the colonnade goes uphill on its own as a covered footpath. There are 666 arches in the colonnade, and it is a healthy climb to the church.

 

 

At the top is San Luca, a big terracotta coloured church which is a major destination for local pilgrims. Most of the old buildings in Bologna are painted in a shade of yellow or orange, there must have been a very good deal on those colours at the local Homebase. The church its self is not remarkable, but its location is, with wonderful views over the city.

 

 

The downward hike was quicker than the upward, and by then it was lunchtime. We stopped at a bistro for pasta and salad and got overcharged. Unfortunately, I don’t know the name of the crappy joint so I can’t slander it adequately in public.

Our next stop was the Palazzo dell’Archinginnasio close to the Basilica, which was the first permanent home of the University. The main attraction is the Anatomy Theatre, complete with a marble slab for dissecting bodies. The room is a reconstruction, the original was bombed in WW2.

 

 

The route back to the flat took us through the Mercato di Mezzo, where we felt the need to support the local economy by drinking wine. I had Sangiovese and Julie had Pignoletto, the local fizzy wine which is just as good as Prosecco. I reckon the Prosecco bubble will burst as soon as Walkers start to make Prosecco flavoured crisps.

 

 

A trip to Rimini

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

We took the train to Rimini on the Adriatic coast. It takes about fifty minutes in a comfortable high-speed train from Bologna station. The station was the location of a terrorist bomb that killed eighty people in 1980 perpetrated by the Red Brigade. The station clock remains at the same time as when the bomb exploded. It’s a sad reminder that Italy has had its share of terrorist incidents.

Rimini has fifteen kilometres of broad sandy beach and hundreds of hotels, it’s where Italians go for their holiday. The town itself is delightful as a destination, and in May it’s very quiet.

 

 

The bridge of Tiberius is a complete Roman bridge started by the first Roman Emperor Augustus and finished by his successor Tiberius. It is over two thousand years old and still in use! Next to the bridge is a delightful district of colourful old houses, some of them decorated with murals. I was seduced by the gelateria and had the best ice-cream I have ever eaten.

 

 

Rimini was the terminus of several Roman roads and was a walled town until the Fascists took them down. The central Piazza Cavour has three palazzos down one side and a vast Victorian theatre on another side, which is currently being renovated.

 

 

The main street in Rimini is the Corso d’Augusto which is a pedestrianised shopping street with a very relaxed ambience. It has a market where Julie was able to buy a new bag becasue her old one was a bit scruffy. All my bags are a bit scruffy, a bit like me, but they still function. We stopped at a tourist cafe for a natural break. The loo was an undignified squat-and-drop, but when you gotta go you gotta go.

 

 

At the end of the Corsa is the Arch of Augustus, a Roman triumphal arch that once had a bronze statue of Big Gus on top of it. It’s the oldest of its type in the world and is big and impressive.

Beyond the arch is a longitudinal park which goes to the beach. It is woody and shady, but you do have to look out for speeding cyclists sharing the footpath. The beach is hundreds of metres wide and is clean soft sand. There were very few people sunbathing, but there were sunshades and loungers for thousands. The season hasn’t started yet, but they are ready for the masses.

 

 

Julie had found a “reasonably priced” seafood restaurant on TripAdvisor, La Pisda E IL Mare. I looked it up on Google Maps and found it was forty feet away across the road, a very convenient coincidence! I found it impossible to resist the Frito Misti, seafood and sliced vegetables deep fried in batter, basically sophistication fish and chips.

Continuing along the seafront we reached the Porto Canale, which is only a few kilometres long and terminates just after the Roman bridge. It is the fishing port of Rimini with dozens of boats which harvest (and I’m guessing here) clams and mussels for the many seafood restaurants in the area. There’s also a lighthouse built in the early 18th century which doubled as a lookout for Turkish pirates that raided Rimini for slaves.

Our train was late, so we had an overpriced beer in a cafe near the station and waited another hour, bummer! But we had a very relaxing day in Rimini, which is a charming town.

 

Foodie Heaven

Tuesday 8th May 2018

Our bedroom had external shutters, so it was very dark in the room and I slept very well. We had a cappuccino and a croissant (called a brioche in Italy) in the cafe in the street close to the flat and then set off to explore the Bologna. The commercial and cultural heart is Piazza Maggiore, a beautiful square surrounded by imposing brick medieval buildings. On our arrival, we saw lots of police in the piazza, and then heard lots of loud car horns and air horns. A procession of white taxis drove slowly into the square and parked outside the town hall. They were protesting about something, but I don’t know what! We were told that Uber is banned in Bologna, so it wasn’t about that.

The Basilica of Saint Petronius is a huge church in the Piazza but is half finished. Originally it would have been bigger than St Peter’s in Rome, but the Pope took some of the funds to build the university. Consequently, the front is only half covered in marble, and the transept was never built. The interior is spacious and lined with twenty chapels and two organs, one of them from 1480.

The Palazzo D’Accursio is a huge palace which is now the town hall. Inside there are staircases which can be ridden up on horseback, but are not so easy to walk up on foot. It has some very grand staterooms with frescos and portraits of the great and the good of old Bologna. In an office the revolting taxi drivers were meeting local officials surrounded by media folk, so we kept clear of that.

 

At 12.30 we climbed the 480 steps to the top of the Asinelli tower. It is a narrow wooden staircase all the way up, and it takes about ten minutes to climb. The view is magnificent and well worth the ascent. We got in behind a group of lively school students, and even they briefly stopped taking selfies to take photos of the wonderful views of old Bologna.

 

 

All those stairs gave us an appetite, so we explored the Quadrilatero district to find some lunch. It is a grid of bars, cafes and food shops near the Piazza, and is a real foodie heaven. There are shops full of handmade pasta, Parma ham, meringues, Parmesan, cakes, fancy bread – everything deliciously Italian. It was hard to decide which place to go in, so we randomly chose Tamburini, which is a self-service cafe, which was a very good choice. I had braised beef with sautéed potatoes, Julie had tortelloni and cannelloni, both were very very good.

 

 

You could spend the whole day grazing in the Quadrilatero, but you would end up very fat and poor, not enviable conditions to be in. We explored the Piazza San Stephany with its Seven Churches, which are, in fact, four churches (still standing) all joined together into a single complex. Some of the buildings date back to Roman times, so it’s all terribly old and quiet and was good for an hour of peace and quiet.

 

 

 

 

Julie then wanted a drink at the nice bar in the square, but I didn’t want to spend five euros on 330 ml of lager. So she got the justifiably got the hump at my stingy attitude, but I eased her pain with a glass of sparkling wine in the Mercato di Mezzo for three euros – result! I saved two euros, which is the same amount I donated to St Stephano church to ensure my entry into heaven.

 

 

We returned to the flat for a rest, a breadstick and some San Miguel beer, I know it’s Spanish, but it is darned good. Thus replenished, it was time for an aperitif in Piazza Aldrovani. The Aperol Spritz came with a selection of snacks and we watched some drunken people at a table across the pavement, it was gently entertaining. Our evening was topped off by pizzas at Pizzeria al Rustica in Via San Vitale, accompanied by some Sangiovese wine. Not a sophisticated meal, but a tasty belt buster.

The Fat One, The Learned One, the Red One

Monday 7th May

Google started bleating it’s alarm at 5.15 this morning, so early that the birds had only just rolled out of bed and were singing in a half-arsed way. After a quick shower and a smoked salmon sandwich (it needed eating up), we got our Bat Cab to T5 Heathrow. We have been using Bat Cabs for about twenty-five years, and stick with them because they are our Local Cab Company for Local People, and it also has a very cool name.

Terminal 5 is an enormous shed with many overpriced shops and some reasonably priced cafes, Pret always being our usual cafe of choice for buying a froffy coffee to get us revived. They can always create a cappuccino at a remarkable speed which is how I like it. Unlike Kew Gardens, where coffee in the Orangery is produced at the growing speed of a Quercus Robur.   Our flight, BA0540,  left on time and arrived two hours later in northeast Italy. The Alps glistened like an over-iced Christmas cake, and Italy looked lush and prosperous from thirty-four thousand feet.

 

 

A taxi (€20) took us straight to our AirBnB in Via dell ‘Unione in central Bologna. A lady who knew very little English let us into the flat, which is probably more secure as Wormwood Scrubs. There is a heavy locked door onto the street, a locked iron gate with four bolts, another locked iron gate and finally the door to the flat, which is made of steel and is three inches thick. The interior of the flat is very modern and minimalist and newly decorated. It has two TVs, both of which show only Italian TV without anything in English. Even the English and US shows are dubbed in Italian. It’s a myth that Italian TV consists only of game shows hosted by Silvio Berlusconi where women take their clothes off, I checked every channel very carefully.

 

 

Our AirBnB host made us a reservation for lunch at Trattoria Broccaindosso, a short walk away. You can’t actually get Spag Bol in Bologna and come to that you can’t get Chilli Con Carne or Chicken Tikka Masala either.  But you can get Tagliatelle Ragu, which is good, but disappointingly similar to the food I cook at home.   But it was very good with a glass of red wine. The service was perfunctory, I think the waiter got the ‘ump because we only had one course.

 

 

Bologna is famous for its porticos, most of the footpaths in the old city are covered by vaulted roofs supported by columns. There are forty kilometres of colonnades which protect pedestrians from the rain and sun.  The city is known as Bologna The Fat, Bologna The Learned and Bologna The Red. It is acknowledged as the foodie capital of Italy, hence The Fat. It has the oldest university in the Western world founded in 1088 and is still swarming with students, which is why it is The Learned.  The city is known for its Communist and Socialist city council, so that gives the name The Red.

 

 

We were recommended Bologna by two sets of friends, and it didn’t disappoint us. The entire city centre is made up of 14th, 15th and 16th-century buildings, the architecture is wonderful. I walked around with my head up all the time, much to the annoyance of other pedestrians.

 

 

A waiter called Micky recommended some bars to us, so we went on a wild goose chase round central Bologna to try and find them. The only one we found had some sort of literary meeting going on, so we gave up the search and ended up in a bar near the Two Towers. Don’t bother looking for Gandalf and Frodo, these towers are just medieval big show-off phallus’s. In the early Middle Ages, there was competition between the noble families to see who could build the tallest brick tower. The Asinelli family won with a ninety-seven-meter monster tower, Mr Asinelli must have been very proud of his erection. It’s thought that there could have been a hundred of towers at one time, now only twenty or so remain.

 

 

The smaller Garisenda tower is 47 metres tall and has a pronounced lean caused by subsidence.

The Caffe Zamboni near the foot of the tower offered any cocktail and a buffet dinner for ten euros, which was a good deal. It wasn’t cordon bleu (or the Italian equivalent), but it was quick and convenient. I had my first Aperol Spritz, and a damned fine drink it is too! It is an aperitif made of Aperol (a type of orangy vermouth), prosecco and a splash of soda water. The place was full of students who were just as pleased as we were to get a cocktail and as much food as you can eat for ten euros.