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

Off to Bologna we go!

Today we finished seeing Riomaggiore the only town we missed yesterday before heading off to Bologna.

We walked down early in the morning to get a good view of Manarola from the sea since we weren't able to walk along the coastal path. We were the only people there because it was still early but low and behold guess who comes strolling along the path? Krysta and Alex! We said our final goodbye to them.

Manarola in the morning.

As we were looking through the shops in Riomaggiore look who we found:

Taryn, Carlee and the birthday girl Brittany! I feel like I live in Italy because everywhere I go I run into friends.

The best part in Riomaggiore was a cool shop we found with hand-crafted jewellery made in Italy. It was called Art in Banchi and it had a sign that said "If you have done a lot of miles to come to Italy, make no mistake, buy Italian." Mom and I spent a long time looking through the different pieces. I ended up buying this ring, which I promise looks better in person than in this picture.

Since we spent so long looking in that store we had to race to the train to go back to Manarola to pick up our luggage and then catch the train to Bologna.

We made the mistake of sitting in the back of the train where at some of the stations you weren't able to see any of the signs of what station you were at so we were quite lost many of the times and never sure when to get off for Parma to transfer. 

We ended up making it without too many problems. This is the view of Bologna from our balcony

We had many people question us about why we were going to Bologna, even one lady who had lived there asked us why we were going but I do not regret coming here. Although there isn't "things" to see, like big tourist attractions, it is gorgeous and the architecture is stunning so I am extremely happy we came and I have enjoyed it immensely. We didn't really plan anything so we just wandered around the main square, the Piazza Maggiore and went to a bunch of different shops around it. There was a little market on as well and we found some more cool jewlery that we spent a long time looking at. We wanted the whole booth so we had to spend a long time picking exactly what we wanted so we didn't spend too much money. We think there is some kind of event going on the next few weeks here but we have to look more into what it is tonight.

There was a lot of live music in the streets and it was nice to sit against the buildings and listen to the guitar and saxaphone. 

I had some interesting gelato here today one was called Bologna Ride and had cremino, salsa nutella and riso croccante. The other scoop was Inferno, which I didn't like as much and it had cioccolato bianco, galak, variegato amarena and wafer loacker.

I took this picture for KK since he loves biking and everyone here is whizzing through the streets on their bikes. I even saw a young girl about 9 years old get hit by someone on a bike today. 

For dinner we had Bolognese and another pasta with zucchini and shrimp

The two people sitting beside us at dinner asked us if they could smoke and it reminded me of the funny experience Brittany and I had in Ischia. In Canada, as pharmacists, we always talk to patients about smoking and assess their stage of wanting to quit. When we talked to the Italian pharmacist that visited our class he looked at us as if we were crazy when we asked if he told his patients to stop smoking. Since smoking is so common in Italy he said he only talks to them if they come to him wanting to quit. One night after this when we were with the boys they started smoking and Brittany and I started "playing" pharmacist with them and asking them on a scale of 1 to 10 how ready were they to quit smoking and what was their biggest barrier to quitting. They didn't really understand with the language barrier but it was funny to us so we kept asking questions. Basically they didn't want to quit at all. Right after this we were at a bar and people asked in Italian if it was okay to smoke beside us. The boys answered back yes and Brittany and I said what?! After we just told you how bad it was to smoke and how it can cause lung cancer! We were mostly just joking (we didn't want to smell smoke at all but we also didn't want them to go back and tell them no) but before we knew it he starts speaking Italian back to them and all we picked up was farmacista, studentessa and cancer, so we knew he was telling them something like no you actually cannot smoke here because these girls are pharmacy students and they think it causes lung cancer. It was really funny and embarrassing and we tried to tell them no, no it's okay, but then everyone was getting confused by the yes, no, yes, no, so they just ended up leaving and smoking outside. All in all we didn't really adopt the culture that night and fit in. Oh well, at least our lungs are still pure. (except that after this ordeal I told the man tonight it was okay because I didn't want to go through this again)

-A