Putting Our Foot Into The Boot

Towers In Bologna

View From The Higher Tower

A Castle-y Street

Me And Julio Down By The Old Port (In Genoa)

An Original Entry Gate To Genoa, Christopher Columbus's House Is Out Of Frame To The Right

Our departure from Switzerland led us into the final country of our journey. In terms of Northern Italy, we decided to skip Venice and Florence, as we have both been before and know what it can be like in the middle of July in terms of the tourist crowds. We opted instead for the less traveled, but still renowned cities, with the first stop being Bologna. As for most of the trip, we booked our lodging in Bologna through Hostelworld, which is essentially Expedia for hostels. As such, we expected to find ourselves in our familiar hostel surroundings. What we were greeted by though was a 3-star hotel with all the fixin’s. Not to say we were engrossed in luxury, but having a stocked bathroom in an air-conditioned room was a nice change of pace. We gallivanted through the piazzas; saw the basin where Pontius Pilate absolved himself of Christ’s death, saw a pair of medieval towers (one with an 8 meter lean), saw a piece of the all-but-gone former city wall and moat, but most importantly we dined at a legit trattoria. Bologna is considered to be the gastronomic capital of Italy, so we decided we had to ditch our backpacking habits and dig in for a meal not handed to us over a counter. I took a minute to look up some restaurants on a food fan website and found that Trattoria Tony was very popular for its down home nature, good prices and excellent eats. The meal was fabulous, AMAZING Bolognese meat sauce, grilled eggplant soaked in olive oil and a plate full of boiled tongue and roast that absolutely melted in our mouths. Pair that with a nice liter of house red and an espresso to finish and we were two stuffed and extremely satisfied travelers. The only downside to Bologna is that we both started to feel the itch in our throats and the congestion in our heads as a nice cold has stricken us both, no worries though, I figure we can just ignore it for the next two weeks until we get home.

Our next stop was Genoa, a city synonymous with the creation of Pesto, as well as being one of the most notable port cities of old Italy. There was a tad bit of frustration in locating our hotel, but again the presence of air conditioning in the room came to the rescue. On the first night we just strolled around a bit, ate some pesto pizza and planned the next days itinerary. We awoke the next morning, took advantage of the hotel’s free breakfast and set out to see the city. At one point, Genoa was walled-in, so we started the day by checking out some of the remaining fortification and gate, as well as the residence of Christopher Columbus which was nearby, quite weathered, but definitely still intact. We then made our way down to the port that is awash with fish markets and eateries, as well as the largest aquarium in Europe and a full-sized pirate ship. We then found ourselves meandering through the streets and alleys of the old town, which our guidebook said was beautiful but eerie. That description was right on the money as the alleys were very narrow and dark, yet from time to time opened up into piazzas full of people and beautiful architecture. We definitely ran into a giant rat (think R.O.U.S’s) in one of the alleys, which was enough cause for us to turn around and take an alternate route, I can neither confirm nor deny the fact that I uttered a less than manly noise upon almost kicking the creature (It wasn’t a scream, just a weird utterance). It was very neat, but Princess Buttercup and I agreed we wouldn’t make the trip after hours. We eventually made a visit to the most glorious of the palazzos in the city, Palazzo Reale, there are palazzos at nearly every turn in this city, but this one is the crème de la crème. It was basically a much smaller scale version of the main palace at Versailles, including a hall of mirrors that was designed to resemble the same hall in Versailles, though the artistry adorning it was quite different. There were portraits of the most noted Greek, Roman, Assyrian and Austrian emperors with corresponding frescoes depicting the reason for the fall of their empires. It was even cooler because you could see each depiction as a mirror image, so you sort of got both points of view? We also saw the outside of some amazing churches, but because they were closed when we were there, we had to move on with only a view of the façade. Our next stop will be the gloom and doom of the Italian Riviera.

Mark and Kaylin