Aww yes, waking up in a proper bed and having another shower. So glorious! Annoyingly we had to walk back out to the edge of the city to offload our rucksacks in the van, and walk back into town.
The first place we visited was the Archiginnasio of Bologna, the first university campus in the city. This 16th century building holds a fibrary and old anatomy theatre. We had to pay 3 euros to see the theatre – ok, interesting wood carvings on the walls and ceiling. Simon had a conference call planned for later in the day and thought he had secured a study room in this building for then.
Bologna has a really interesting skyline, with the main feature being the two towers – one is super tall and leaning slightly, whereas the other is smaller and leaning a lot. They look amazing, just sucks that the weather so bad that there was no point climbing them for the views.
Next, we visited the Basilica of San Petronio. The exterior of this church is great, with a gothic facade that is unfinished and spots half way up. Inside, the church is quite plain apart from an amazing fresco by Giovanni de Modena and a merdinian line. It was a bit of a strange church visit, however. The church was free to get in, but it cost 3 euros to get close to the chapel with the Giovanni fresco, which seemed a bit steep, and as the view was better good further away from it, we stood on the other side of the rope and looked from there – until we were told off for doing this. We were also told off for taking photos (even though we didn’t see any signs) and told that we needed to pay 2 euros for this (which we didn’t). It was a weird experience, as of course we’re happy to pay to see great artworks and to visit churches, but being told off and demanding that we pay for things we didn’t think we needed to, made us feel quite disgruntled.
Next church was the Cathedral of San Pietro. Normally I hate baroque interiors, but this one was rather nice, all white with gold trimmings. Some of the features looked more like they were from a palace or a grand theatre than a church. I was starting to feel really weary and needed caffeine boost, so we stopped for coffee and a cake.
Re-engerised, we headed to the art gallery at Palazzo d’Accursio. This palace used to be the seat of Pope Urban VIII. It featured from really nice interiors, including a room with walls entirely covered in painted coats of arms and interesting architectural structures, and another room painted to look like it is outside. There were a few artworks ranging from medieval to 19th century, with my favourite being a 19th century portrait of Anne Boleyn looking totally distressed – wish I had taken note of the artist’s name.
The weather today was pretty horrible, but by this time it was properly snowing and the roads were covered in wet slush.
We went into another church of Santa Maria della Vita. The church itself was quite basic, however, the oratory was really beautiful and had really impressive terracotta statues of the Transit of the Madonna.
The time for Simon’s call was approaching, and as we were closer to the main university of Bologna campus, he decided to start searching for somewhere to call from there, with no avail. With 20 mins to go, we headed back, through the wind and snow, to Archiginnasio. However, the staff member at reception had changed from earlier and he said there were no such study rooms in this building, only the library. Simon ended up doing the call while sat on the floor in between exhibition cases and struggling with the WiFi connection – pretty stressful but somehow he pulled it off.
After this tense experience we decided we needed some yummy food. I’ve recently converted back to vegetarianism, but didn’t to have a Bolognese meat treat. We shared a spaghetti Bolognese and a lasagne – so delicious!!
The weather was really pretty terrible so we when on search for another treat – tiramisu. But this was less successful, as what we got were creamy deserts that didn’t really taste of coffee or alcohol at all.
Last spot of the day was the Museum of Modern Art. I wasn’t that impressed by any of the pieces but it did feel like a good palette cleanser from churches and religious art – I was able to walk around without the weight of God on me :p
On the way to the van we got a little candle in the vain hope that it will make us a little warmer in the night. Didn’t really work, but having JP2 in da house definitely adds to the experience. After a quick dinner, off we drove to Ferrara
