Bologna

The day began gray and didn't change throughout. Breakfast in the dining room was delicious. Eggs, meats, breads, fruit, etc,etc.

We had a bit of a snafu with our guide. A woman nameed Annalise who is reputed to be the best guide in Balogna was to be our guide but when we went downstairs to meet her she wasn't there. Friend four tried to call her as did her agency but she was not answering. Finally they figured out somehow that she had basically passed us on to another guide but had misdirected him about where to meet us. He came to the hotel and was incredibly apologetic. We assured him we were not angry. Then he started guiding and he was amazing. The best guide. We have ever had. He is an art professor and his speciality is ancient art. He was able to tell us so much about the things wevwere seeing and he made it so interesting in part because he was so interested. We decided that we were very fortunate that Annalise dumped us.

In the main plaza there is a large building that was used by the pope. He had a porch from which he would greet the people. Under the porch are statutes of two eagles. One by Michelangelo. He asked us to guess which one -- I went way up in his estimation when I got it right! Docents eat your hearts out! Right across from the porch is a beautiful Neptune fountain. The story is that thevartist wanted to build the fountain in Rome ute pope thought it was too sexual, Neptune is a very muscular nude and around his feet are four mermaids with water coming from their breasts. Since he couldn't build it in Rome he built it in Bologna, right in front of the pope's porch.

There are two towers in Bologna, these towers apparently are built by wealthy noblemen to show their power and wealth. The two towers settled in the soft sand beneath them and are both leaning toward one another.

At the end of the tour, Maximo, took us to a place to get traditional Bologna mests and cheese. It was great! He got a very generous tip. Did I mention that he was as nice to look at as the sights?

After lunch four of us tried and failed to go to three different museums but we had a lovely stroll around the city. Our guide in Verona told us that although football is supposed to be the national sport of Italy, the true national sport is strolling.

After the mandatory pre dinner proseco we strolled to Da Nello and had an amazing mushroom salad. The rest of the dinner was good but the salad was unique and amazing.