Signed, Sealed, Delivered

A brief sleep in was in order after a long day of walking yesterday. Roused by the sunlight I spent the morning making travel arrangements and booking places to stay. Breakfast finally happened around 11am once things were settled online. Before leaving my bungalow I managed to use tweezers to restitch part of the sleeve on my t-shirt. Now that's what I call resourceful! I picked up a train ticket to Venezia (Venice) in town and headed to the post office to mail home various souveniers and papers I've collected thus far. The woman who helped me didn't speak much English, but I was able to buy a box that fit everything and fill out all the custom forms. One and a half hours and E35 later and both packages were in the mail. Yea! Three kilos (6.6 lbx.) less weight to lug around!!

I stopped at an open air cafe near the post office for a tasty lunch of tortelloni stuffed with cheese and green bits (basil or spinach??) in a light cream sauce with proscuitto and asparagus. Holy goodness! I paired it with a locally made white wine named Albana. Great combination. The wine smelled fruity, but had a clean, crisp flavor with just a hint of a buttery/chardonnay flavor in the background. Everything went down easy.

Most places worth visiting in Bologna are closed on Monday; hence the busy day yesterday. With really nothing to do or see today I decided to revisit Basilica di San Petronio to make sure I saw Giovanni da Modena's bizarre I'Inferno fresco. Bizarre it was. There were demon creatures eating people and strange horned creatures roaming about. The basilica is the 5th largest in the world even with it's incomplete facade. The bottom half is varying shades of white, green and red marble blocks and the top half is dark brown-black scalloped cement looking material. Gives two-toned a new meaning.

Having nothing better to do and really spending time in Bologna for the food, I stopped at a cafe for a cappuccino and pastry in the hopes that I could waste some time to stick around long enough for dinner. The pastry was surprisingly filled with vanilla custard and topped with almonds in a sugary glaze. A few sudoku puzzles later I decided to search out a place for dinner. I found the jazz club I had hoped to enjoy, but it didn't open until 8pm. Seemed a bit late to be in town when I still had to catch up on my blog, shower and pack up to leave tomorrow. Across the street was a movie theater with the show Remember Me starting in about 10 mins., but it was showing in Italian. No point in not understanding a great movie for E8. I gave up on eating in town and opted to eat later at the campground cafe. The evening's meal sampling was tagliatelli--1/4" wide pasta noodles with a beef bolognese sauce. Very tasty, but a bit too greasy for my liking.