Random Sights in Bologna
Tuesday, May 12th, 2015
I haven’t written a blog post in an embarassing long time so I have a few  quick items. Some time ago, coming home late from the center of the city I saw a girl on a bus. She’s was pretty and young and at first I hardly took notice. Then I noticed her Doc Marten type of boots (laces untied of course) and paid a bit more attention. She was really stylish in a subtle way and then her profile struck me as something right out of a renaissance painting.
Rennaissance girl
Next up, the preparations for May Day in Piazza Maggiore. It’s the Labor Day holiday here as in pretty much the rest of Europe. Of course we Americans think of a labor day as associated with some kind of socialist/communist international conspiracy so we of course have a labor day on a different day of the year. Still, it’s a big day here with not too much of political overtones – strangely enough similar to our own holiday.
May Day preparation in Piazza Maggiore
There are, however protests. This one was on about May 5th to protest changes to the educational system in Italy recently enacted by the current government. I know little about the changes and whether they are good or bad but there were a lot of people out concerned about diminished educational offerings or quality. Of course this filled Piazza Maggiore and Piazza Nettuno – where such things happen in Bologna.
Demonstration in Piazza Nettuno and Piazza Maggiore
I haven’t written about our apartment here in Bologna. It’s on the second and top floor of a building in a nice area. The building was built in about 1550 so it deserves a post all by itself so that will be coming up soon. In any case this is the view of the tree and adjacent roof from our little terrace.
View from the terrace
There are frequently changing exhibits on the main floor of Biblioteca Sala Borsa. The current one that just opened is about food in all kinds of forms. One of the installations is this creatively set table.
Table setting in the Biblioteca
And last but not least…. Unlike the autobahn in Germany where there are parts of the highway with no speed limit, there is a speed limit on the autostrada in Italy – 130 Km/hour (about 80 mph). Of course if you have a fast car and you think that you can just outrun the police, think again. I saw this Lamborghini painted as a police car on display today in Piazza Maggiore (where else).
Really fast police car.
Of course I doubt that they actually bought and use this rocket for police work but it does draw a bit of a crowd as you might imagine.
