Bologna, Italy

In the interest of keeping things simple, I will give you the short version of this pre-honeymoon…

We spent 2 days in Bologna with our friends Richard, Gillian, George, Alan & Patsy. We had so much fun and ate, and drank and laughed.

We sampled a million gelatos, walked kilometers to find the perfect one.

via San Felice

We love these porticoed streets

Really good cheese and meat shop in Via Pescherie Vecchie, Bologna

Tamburini , a lovely lovely place to have cheese and meats and wine. in Via Calzolerie

Then we then went to Florence and met up with other other good friends Michael and Alli.Then back to Bologna to show them around before they had to leave back to South Africa.

Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower, Piazza di San Giovanni with Alli and Michael showing some love

The food was simple and delicious, this is in Firenze at Volta di San Piero

Ponte Vecchio, Firenze

Watching the sunset from Piazza Michaelangelo was not an original idea.

View from Piazza di Michaelangelo at sunset

Rose eating gelato La Carraia

After spending 4 days in Bologna I feel like I know the place a little better, but yet reading the guidebooks I realize I have only touched the surface as far as beautiful artworks and treasures to discover.

For Bologna I feel like you need to take an area at a time and really explore each one slowly. Then find a lovely place for lunch , like the one we found yesterday ( Chris first complained about it and then ended up taking the credit when it turned out the food was wonderful.. jokes)

Allora so a little lunch, some vino , end off with caffe and then on the walk back to the Airbnb a little gelato of course. Then a siesta to recover from the heat(and wine) and you venture out at 6pm for “la passagiato & aperitivos.

We tried a few new ones this time. Casa minghetti , really cool and hip. Beautiful setting with some good people watching as well as olives and chips served for aperitivo. And then if you can fit it in , and we did regularly some more food later at one of the restaurants in the quadrilatero. Salami , prosciutto, mortadella and cheese in good quantities. We never go hungry in Italy.

It was fun taking our friends Michael and Alli and showing them Bologna as we know it. Not really sure why we have such an affinity to this city. It just feels right and it feels like a city we could easily live in.

But more about that next time

So we said good-bye to the friends and we start the real adventure.