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.

Our tour guide to Lake Como seemed to know what some of us were thinking at the start of the tour, when he came onto the bus, he was like," I've already talked to our friend and no we will not be going to his house today because I called him this morning and he's in vegas at the moment." He was referring to none other than George Clooney, Lake Como's most famous resident. Unfortunately, that day wasn't one of the best for sightseeing as there was a very heavy fog most of the day over the river. So not very good pictures... but nevertheless, Lake Como is a beautiful area and one can only imagine how popular it must be during summer.

At the site of one of the biggest villas in Lake Como. Today it's a museum.


Taking the furnicular up to the top of the mountain to have a good view of the lake from above... but super foggy, so not much use anyhow... And it was freezing cold too! We all came back down within 20 mins of going up.

View of the city from above

Duomo: begun in 1396 on the site of the previous Romanesque church of Santa Maria Maggiore. The façade was built in 1457, with the characteristic rose window and a portal flanked by two Renaissance statues of the famous Comaschi Pliny the Elder and Younger (the only non-catholic statues).




Ancient medieval walls

Last part of the day, we took a river cruise around the Lake, and our guide pointed out to us the more famous houses owned by rich and famous people on the Lake.



Villa previously owned by Gianni Versace

Villa where Winston Churchill used to frequent back in the days...

From Lyon, I took a 7 hour train (connecting in Geneva) to go over to Milan as part of my mini tour of Italy. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the trains had an eletrical outlet which enabled me to be thoroughly entertained by my video ipod for the full journey. My second day in Milan, i took a city tour of Milan. One of the main stops we made was at the Castello Sforzesco, a castle that used to be the seat and residence of the ruling family of Milan and now houses several of the city's museums and art collections. Photos below:
Milan train station

Old city map of Milan

Front facade of the castello

City walls.. the castello was much bigger than it is seen today. When Napoleon conquered the city during the Napoleonic wars, he demolished much of the wars to make way for the many buildings that can be seen in front of the facade today.


Milan crest/symbol

House which belonged to the Italian Prime Minister, in a prime district of Milan.

Santa Maria delle Grazie, famous for the mural of the Last supper by Leonardo da Vinci, which is in the refectory of the covent.



Sorry, not the real one, just a copy. The real one is already deterioating at a really fast pace so photos are an absolute no go in there.

Typical streets of Milan. Interestingly, Milan is the only italian city which chose to retain the 1930 tram cars and not upgrade them to the more modern ones... so you'll still see them today in the city.... (small yellow boxes with hardly any ventiliation)

Scarla Opera house

City Town Hall

The Galleria that connects the opera house to the Duomo. Many luxury brands have their stores here, including the first Gucci coffee cafe, where visitors can sip coffee even if they're not planning to go inside the store at all. Had the most expensive lunch in one of the cafes.... 20 Euros for a course of risotto!!


There is a saying here that if you put the heel of your foot into the hole and turn a 360 degree turn, luck will come to you.... so bulls are lucky animals here :)


This is probably the one building that most people come to Milan to see, the Duomo, constructed of white marble and is like the 4th largest church in the world?






Piazza Duomo


Thus was my sightseeing in Milan. I spent quite a bit of time shopping here too as when I was there, the year end sales were on and they were awesome! To me, it was an ok city, though not the nicest in Italy, and I definitely was very cautious when walking around due to all the gypsies that were always lurking around the touristy areas.