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.

Hosanna From The Salty Pork

Originally I planned to be at the bus 25 stop around 7am, in town around 7:30am and then have a half hour to try and catch a service at 8am. Still too tired from not sleeping in Firenze (slamming doors, noisy streets and children yelling in the street at 6:30am) and getting lost with luggage yesterday, I opted to get up at 7am and go from there. It's Roman Catholic land, so there must be 10 masses on Palm Sunday right?

My calculations were correct. Arriving in town around 9am I walked to one of the main cathedrals on my map and walked right into a service at 9:30am. Perfectly timed. They even had leaflets that outlined the mass in Italian so I was able to follow along and read the Italian to participate. It's close enough to Spanish and has enough Latin roots that you can piece together most (60-70%) of what you read. Also being well versed in Catholic services I could track with what was going on and even partially sing. Plus I got half of JC in bread form again. All in all, a good start to the day. I've always been intrigued by the translation of Hosanna--oh save now--which makes Palm Sunday and more meaningful celebration for me. Here in Bologna, as I guess most of Italy, they use olive branches instead of palms. I'm glad they're using local flora rather than importing palms.

I wandered through the Archeological Museum viewing old pots, arrowheads, vases and bones. As I soon discovered, every church in town (which is usually a fair portion of what you visit in Europe as that's where lots of history is) was offering Palm Sunday services. I decided to sit through mass again for a 2nd helping of JC to view a famous painting afterwards. I think I saw it, but I'm not sure as it wasn't labeled the same as my guidebook and an usher was shooing people out to close up the church.

Most of my day was spent wandering about catching a sight here and there. I stopped at a piazza to enjoy the sun, located a cafe for dinner, climbed 500 steps up a tower (much taller than the Leaning Tower as noted by a wall plaque), ate lunch, visited the Modern Art Museum, ate dinner, grabbed some gelato (chocolate and pistachio) on the way to the bus stop and plopped down in the hostel room. Dinner was not quite what I'd hoped to eat. I wanted something meaty and was looking forward to some pasta. I inadvertently ended up with what can only be described as a meat salad. Slices of cured pork meat (kind of looked like prosciutto but no fat) were topped with cooked spinach and a circle of tomato halves. Imagine eating a lunch meat sandwich in pieces. The meat was so salty I don't think I'll have a lunch meat sandwich the rest of the week. The wine was good however--frangalina (I think) white wine. A strong wine with just the right amount of fruitiness.

It was a long day of walking. Strangely I think I saw everything there is to see in Bologna. Mostly though I came here to eat good food. A good chance to sleep in and take the day slowly tomorrow.