Bologna
10:02 AM
From Milan, it's a two and a half hour train to Bologna, 1 hour if you take the express (but then, from my experience of sitting in Italian trains, they suck! They're hardly ever on time, and trains get cancelled so frequently, and their timetable system is so crap that they can sell you a connecting ticket with barely 15 mins between trains, and if their system will only show you one choice, and you have to go manually again back to the counter to change... blah blah blah... you get the drift... Anyhow, the best story is yet to come... So back to Bologna. Surprisingly, I enjoyed this city quite a lot. It was very different from Milan and a very beautiful city, very old, very friendly and it's like the food capital of Italy... man... i practically ate my way through Bologna... Lasagna, Ragu, Tortellini, Tali, hams... it's all from this region.... and it was like a different meal every day... trying all the regional specialities... and I couldn't try them all unfortunately.
I signed up for a walking tour and it was quite cool coz I happened to be the only english tourist on the walking tour that day, so it was just me and the guide walking around...
So let's start with the pictures: Old city walls of Bologna below leading up to Piazza Maggiore, the main city centre. It was just a 5-10mins walk from my B&B which was very handy...
Medieval building in Piazza Maggiore from the 13th century (I think if I remember correctly) and today it serves as the town hall of Bologna. Musems all over Bologna are free (as my guide made a point of telling me), so it is definitely very budget friendly to tourists who like sightseeing especially the archaeological museum where you can still see the Roman ruins from a long long time ago. Apparently, Bologna was built as a strategic stronghold for/from Florence as it is defended naturally by the mountains and from its central position, you can access the different parts of the country easily.
A mock facade built to hide the "ugliness" of the food markets beyond, which in my opinion is like a treasure of Bologna...
Neptune fountain, also known as the Shrine for the fallen of the Liberation. The more interesting point is that the fountain was run using ancient roman aqueducts and still is today. How cool is that...
To me this was wierd... the guide said that the 4 ladies represented the four known continents in the world back then.
Bologna crest
San Petronio church, known for having the only mural in the world whereby the Muslim Prophet Mohammad is depicted as fallen in hell. Apparently after 911, the muslims living in Bologna tried to bomb the church because of the mural as they saw it as insulting.
Anyone remember Leonardo da vinci's famous painting of God reaching out to men and touching by the fingers? Well, apparently, Leonardo gained inspiration for that finger touching thingy from that carving below...
Tourist office... very friendly people I must say... and who spoke good english too... Sorry, I get very amazed when I meet foreigners who are willing to speak english to you...coz they can get very snobby sometimes.... sometimes it seems that english is double edged sword. It can bridge gaps, but leave you out in the cold as well...
Shopping district
Entrance to the University. Bologna has one of the oldest universities in the world and the University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating degree-granting university in Europe. So alot of tradition and prestige associated here, though it is not necessarily the best performing university. My guide informed me that graduation rate is only about 30%. She explained that this is due to the culture of Bologna for centuries, which is basically to enjoy life. So this philosophy has been carried down and enthusiastically embraced even by its students.
Coats of arms of families who have studied here.
The university was bombed by the Americans (in order to liberate Bologna from the Germans) so half of the building is relatively new and restored....
Graduating students are allowed to hang their plaques on the wall to symbolize their success. However, they are some blank ones too, symbolizing those who bought a space centuries ago, but never got to paint their crest on it coz they never ever graduated!!
Medical room, where corpses were dissected in front of students during the lessons.
Secret window whereby the church officials would watch to make sure that no evil science subjects/notions were being taught to the students....
2 Typical things about Bologna, it's salmon/reddish colours of the buildings (like a darker colour hue of Marrakech), and the porticos which were created to supported extra extensions of upstair apartments to provide extra lodging for the students who were swarming into town. Till today, student still rent these shoe box extensions.
Santo Stefano: the seven churchs of the New Jerusalem. No pictures allowed inside, but definitely worth going in. The highlight was the third church for me, where a replica of a famous church in Jerusalem was built in like "kids" size in the middle of the church. And people actually crawl into the church as pilgrimage sort of thing.... The whole architecture of the churches inside too is pretty amazing, with its romanic cloisters and murals.... You can literally picture me going Ahhhh when I stepped inside...
Rooster symbolizing the famous scene in the bible.
So, here we have a leaning tower of Bologna, the Garisenda, you have a look at it from a certain angle (example, here) to truly realize the true extent of how much it is leaning.... from afar it doesn't seem that bad, but when I stood here I went OMG... The taller one is called the Asinelli and while leaning too, is not that noticeable YET. Their names derive from the families which are traditionally credited for their construction between 1109 and 1119. So of course these towers were built to watch over the city, as I mentioned before, Bologna was chosen for its very strategic location as the centre of Italy.
I signed up for a walking tour and it was quite cool coz I happened to be the only english tourist on the walking tour that day, so it was just me and the guide walking around...
So let's start with the pictures: Old city walls of Bologna below leading up to Piazza Maggiore, the main city centre. It was just a 5-10mins walk from my B&B which was very handy...
Medieval building in Piazza Maggiore from the 13th century (I think if I remember correctly) and today it serves as the town hall of Bologna. Musems all over Bologna are free (as my guide made a point of telling me), so it is definitely very budget friendly to tourists who like sightseeing especially the archaeological museum where you can still see the Roman ruins from a long long time ago. Apparently, Bologna was built as a strategic stronghold for/from Florence as it is defended naturally by the mountains and from its central position, you can access the different parts of the country easily.
A mock facade built to hide the "ugliness" of the food markets beyond, which in my opinion is like a treasure of Bologna...
Neptune fountain, also known as the Shrine for the fallen of the Liberation. The more interesting point is that the fountain was run using ancient roman aqueducts and still is today. How cool is that...
To me this was wierd... the guide said that the 4 ladies represented the four known continents in the world back then.
Bologna crest
San Petronio church, known for having the only mural in the world whereby the Muslim Prophet Mohammad is depicted as fallen in hell. Apparently after 911, the muslims living in Bologna tried to bomb the church because of the mural as they saw it as insulting.
Anyone remember Leonardo da vinci's famous painting of God reaching out to men and touching by the fingers? Well, apparently, Leonardo gained inspiration for that finger touching thingy from that carving below...
Tourist office... very friendly people I must say... and who spoke good english too... Sorry, I get very amazed when I meet foreigners who are willing to speak english to you...coz they can get very snobby sometimes.... sometimes it seems that english is double edged sword. It can bridge gaps, but leave you out in the cold as well...
Shopping district
Entrance to the University. Bologna has one of the oldest universities in the world and the University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating degree-granting university in Europe. So alot of tradition and prestige associated here, though it is not necessarily the best performing university. My guide informed me that graduation rate is only about 30%. She explained that this is due to the culture of Bologna for centuries, which is basically to enjoy life. So this philosophy has been carried down and enthusiastically embraced even by its students.
Coats of arms of families who have studied here.
The university was bombed by the Americans (in order to liberate Bologna from the Germans) so half of the building is relatively new and restored....
Graduating students are allowed to hang their plaques on the wall to symbolize their success. However, they are some blank ones too, symbolizing those who bought a space centuries ago, but never got to paint their crest on it coz they never ever graduated!!
Medical room, where corpses were dissected in front of students during the lessons.
Secret window whereby the church officials would watch to make sure that no evil science subjects/notions were being taught to the students....
2 Typical things about Bologna, it's salmon/reddish colours of the buildings (like a darker colour hue of Marrakech), and the porticos which were created to supported extra extensions of upstair apartments to provide extra lodging for the students who were swarming into town. Till today, student still rent these shoe box extensions.
Santo Stefano: the seven churchs of the New Jerusalem. No pictures allowed inside, but definitely worth going in. The highlight was the third church for me, where a replica of a famous church in Jerusalem was built in like "kids" size in the middle of the church. And people actually crawl into the church as pilgrimage sort of thing.... The whole architecture of the churches inside too is pretty amazing, with its romanic cloisters and murals.... You can literally picture me going Ahhhh when I stepped inside...
Rooster symbolizing the famous scene in the bible.
So, here we have a leaning tower of Bologna, the Garisenda, you have a look at it from a certain angle (example, here) to truly realize the true extent of how much it is leaning.... from afar it doesn't seem that bad, but when I stood here I went OMG... The taller one is called the Asinelli and while leaning too, is not that noticeable YET. Their names derive from the families which are traditionally credited for their construction between 1109 and 1119. So of course these towers were built to watch over the city, as I mentioned before, Bologna was chosen for its very strategic location as the centre of Italy.
