Before setting out today, we spent (too much) time trying to
figure out why some walking tours we’d downloaded to our MP3 players were not
appearing in our playlists. Tom figured
out a work-around and we were on our way.
We stopped in at the enormous Cathedral of St. Peter on the
nearby Via Independenza and then walked to the nearby Piazza Maggiore to begin
the recorded tour. We especially enjoyed
the beautiful courtyard of the Archiginnasio, the first building of Bologna’s
university, the oldest in Europe. The
Archiginnasio is now the home of the municipal library, which was hosting an
exhibit highlighting children’s picture books about families with same-sex
parents. There were quite a few American
volumes on display and it was interesting to see that the groundbreaking title
in this genre was published in 1989.
Our guided wander took us to the church of San Domenico,
where St. Dominic’s tomb, embellished with reliefs and sculptures from a
notable cohort of artists, including Pisano and Michelangelo, is the big draw.
Santo Stefano is actually a complex of several churches, a
courtyard and cloister fronting on a quiet, triangular piazza formed by several
porticoed streets.
From there, it was a
short walk to the Due Torre, the only two remaining towers dating from the
Middle Ages in a city that once had hundreds.
One of the towers, the Torre Garisenda, leans every bit as dramatically
as its famous cousin in Pisa; the effect is especially perilous-looking because
of the small space in a busy piazza in which this tower sits.
A quick tour around the church of San Giacomo Maggiore and
then on to the beautiful fresco cycle illustrating the life of St. Cecelia in
the small oratory that bears her name.
At that point, we decided to unplug. We were in the University district again, and
decided to grab panini and join the crowds of students in Piazza Giuseppe
Verdi enjoying lunch and conversation in the midday sun. It was a relaxed scene, an ancient
university, thriving in the 21st century, with a student population
obviously drawn from all over the world.
Do you suppose they know how lucky they are?
We spent the first part of the afternoon roughly following a
written walking tour around the canals of Bologna. We crossed through the streets of the old
Jewish Ghetto and had some interesting views of the canals that are still
visible from street level today, but ditched the walk when the canals went
underground and showed no promise of coming back into view. We do have some significant canal experiences
in our very near future, so this was no big loss.
Uncharacteristically for us, we took a late afternoon break
back in our apartment and, after the pause that refreshed, we returned to the
food shops and small markets that had so enticed us yesterday to pick up to-die-for
Lasagne Bolognese and some other dinner provisions.
After our espresso, we walked over to Via Independenza and
up to the Piazza Maggiore and the adjacent Piazza Nettuno for a last look at
this gorgeous city, beautifully lit as the evening darkened. Everything about Bologna works so well with
everything else: porticoes, palazzi, churches, university, piazzas, beautifully
turned-out citizens, food, beautiful shops, cafes spilling into the streets,
real life surrounded by history. It’s
just magic, almost hard to believe it’s not a movie set.
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