Walk of the Arches

shopping at the market last night

Today we did a lot of walking! I love to walk everywhere on holidays and never stop but even by the end I needed to lie down in the hotel room for a 40 minute siesta before venturing off again. We walked from 9:30 am until 5:30 straight, never sitting down except for a 15 minute latte. 

We started the day by climbing the 498 steps of the Asinelli Tower, which gave us an amazing view of Bologna. 

We then went shopping around the main square into little meat and cheese shops and clothing stores. I bought a full pant suit jumper, which is very unlike me! All the ladies in the shop were dressing me and sometimes when we were just asking questions there was a language barrier and if I had said something about black or white the next thing I knew I had about 10 tops in white and black to try on.

Cool wooden bike

 

We also randomly ended up at a lot of the tourist attractions, such as the Biblioteca comunale dell'Archiginnaslo

After stopping at a few more stores I decided that after lugging my moms massive skirt around in my purse all day (I didn't pack anything below my knees) and getting a sore neck from it that we should probably head off towards the church so that I didn't carry it for nothing. 

We headed off towards the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca. I got us on track using a map and we passed San Francesco so we knew we were on the right path. After that it looked like it was a straight walk. I took a picture of my mom in front of San Francesco and stuck the map into my pocket.

 After I put my camera away I took a few steps and reached into my pocket and realized the map wasn't there. I turned around and saw a kind of scrubby looking man pick up my map and pocket it. I convinced my mom we didn't need it and that we just needed to keep walking because the map said it was at the end of this street anyways. When we finally got to the end of the street we saw a large building but it really didn't look like much. I asked inside the tabacchi and she pointed to the building we were right beside. We walked up a hill on the side of the building thinking maybe the entrance was on the other side but it wasn't really looking right so we asked a lady on the side of the road. She said no, no it was sinistra and really far and up a hill. We went left and kept walking. After about 10 minutes I asked again at a restaurant and they said it was another 3 km through the arches. 

We started our walk up through the 660 arches. 

It was quite the long walk but it didn't feel too bad until the way back where we had to walk probably another 6 km to get back to the hotel. I had to take a little siesta before dinner.

Before dinner we got some gelato my one flavour was called Basta Tutti a Casa, which was so yummy and had gianduiotto torino, variegata pistacchio and nutella variegata. The other scoop was crema catalana which was basically like creme brule with uova and zucchero bruciato (eggs and burned sugar). As I'm writing this my iPad is resting on my big creme brule belly. For dinner I had tortelloni with cream of gorgonzola cheese and walnuts.  

I don't even think the million miles we walked today can burn off this meal but that's okay, when in Italy!

-A