Bologna...yum!

So this weekend I was supposed to go on a trip to the Umbria region. However, there were no train tickets left and no way to get there (except the ridiculously expensive option of taking the train to Rome first and then backtrack to Umbria on the super fast trains). So, I stayed in Milan Friday night and then made a Saturday day trip to Bologna!

Bologna is in the Emilia-Romanga region which is (as a region) known for it's food. Parma created proscuitto, another town created Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Bologna (also know as Bologna "Il Grasso" or "the Fat") claims bolognese sauce (duh) and tortellini.

We got in Bologna right at lunch time (perfect!). We walked from the train station to the main street in town, ended up in the public gardens for a time, and then headed for lunch. It was probably the best thing I've had in Italy yet. I had tortellini in brodo which is tortellini in a broth and a traditional Bolognese food. It was delicious, as was the tortellini alle bolognese which I tried (my friends both had it). We also had some very good bruschetta to start our meal.

After eating we headed to the main squares. We saw the Neptune statue in Bologna which was very controversial at the time it was erected (and probably still is judging by it). It's rather sensual which people considered disrespectful to Neptune. However, it's still beautiful. After that we saw the main Basillica San Petronius (which I believe is the 5th largest Catholic church in the world...). I couldn't take pictures inside but it was beautiful and there is a very famous fresco in there. There also happened to be a small exhibit on Mother Theresa which we walked through (it had English to read) and was very interesting. I never knew that she had spent her early years of being a nun in Ireland.

We went and saw the Two Towers of Bologna (il due torre...yes, it made me think of Lord of the Rings). One of them is actually leaning and inspired Dante to write about a similar tower. Turns out that it was a competition between two families to see who could build a taller tower (Freud anybody?). It's very clear which one won.

After that we walked to Santo Stefano's which is a church that is actually seven churches. It was crazy and a bit confusing. They're all just attached to each other. And there's "Pilate's Courtyard" with this basin where Pilate supposedly washed his hands after condemning Jesus to death. There are few problems with this. One being that I don't remember that Jesus was crucified anywhere near Bologna, Italy and the second that the courtyard and basin were built in the 4th century.

Finally we went to San Domenico which is very pretty and also rather large. We saw a lot of churches apparently. We had planned to stay longer but then it started to rain. Since we were all umbrella-less, I was wearing my new leather jacket, and there was a train in 40 minutes we headed to the train station and headed back to Milan.

In other Milan life it has been freezing here and our heat doesn't work yet. I'm pretty bundled up for mid-October.