Bologna Miscellaneous

Bologna at one time had rivers and canals. Now most of the rivers run under the city. I was told that if you find yourself on a long and winding street that there’s a good bet that it follows the path of a river that has now been covered over with the street. There still as at least one canal that is on the surface. I ran across it quite by accident when I met some others for lunch at a trattoria that is near this canal.

The last Saturday night that I was in Bologna I went to dinner with Claudia and then she suggested that since it was still early (11:00 was considered early for her) then why not walk up to PIazza Maggiore where she was expecting to meet some friends. Every summer they set up a large screen and a thousand or so chairs and show movies after it is dark. Which means at this time they probably don’t start until at least 9:30 or 10:00. The weather was really how the last week that I was there – hitting 100 degrees some days so it was really pleasant at 11:00. They were showing a silent French movie from the 20’s with Italian subtitles (or whatever you call those frames of written dialog for silents). The most spectacular thing was that there was also a full orchestra for the music. Very impressive. I also took a dim picture of the statue of Neptune – another symbol of  the city.

They are trying a policy this year of closing the very center of the city on weekends to all motor vehicle traffic including taxis, buses and scooters. I went there once when they were closed both Saturday and Sunday and don’t know if they modified that to only Saturdays. It was really interesting to see a broad boulevard jammed with people. I couldn’t even ride my bicycle. The downside for me is that the buses that I usually took to the center had changed routes so it was a bit inconvenient. From the crowds it must have been a hit.

So that’s my last post from Bologna. Now I’ve been back in California for over a month and as with last year have found it a bit hard to readjust to life in my neighborhood when compared to Bologna. I’ll be back.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2012 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.