Dreaming In Italian

Since my volunteer work has now concluded I decided I’d take a little time and do some more touristy stuff. That’s usually not my thing. I’d rather go into a hardware store in another country than into a church. New stuff in each one with it’s own type of fascination. Still I was feeling guilty about not having gone to more significant tourist places. The first stop was was one of the older parts of the University of Bologna. It’s called the Archiginnasio (I have no idea where that comes from) and was the first unified seat of the Bologna. The university itself was founded in 1088 but they finally got around to constructing a building to house it in the 1560s and it stayed that way for 250 years or so before significant further expansion. Now it is mostly a library which houses a huge volume of historically significant documents.

There are said to be 7000 coats of arms which were reserved for students of special standing.

Walls lined with coats of arms

More coats of arms and decorative ceiling

It also still houses the the anatomical theater which is quite spectacular. It is built entirely of wood and the present one is a meticulous reconstruction of the original which was heavily damaged by an errant allied bomb near the end of WWII. Unfortunate shit does happen, especially in times of war.

Anatomy table

Skinless guys near the lecture podium

Several statues on the walls of prominent physicians of the era and more ancient times – roman and greek

Incredible ceiling – this is just one small part

As the long weekend including June 2 approached the buses finally were experiencing a sciopero (strike). This was an all day event and occurred on the Friday that I wanted to go to see Franceschina (that’s the little Francesca). I had been there once before on Friday but she was sick. So I made the trek of a bit over 2 miles on foot. Since the strike lasted all day then it was the same distance back plus with some detours for pleasure it was probably around 4.5 miles. Of course since I didn’t go to the gym that morning (due to the sciopero) then that was probably a good thing. Terrible picture of Franceschina with my phone but it will just have to do. The other one is the girl from Germany that was in the acting class with me and Claudia and she seems much older than her 19 years but certainly is cute isn’t she?

Poor picture of Franceschina – one of the best teachers ever

Lisa from Germany

Later that weekend milled around in the center of town where they were having a festival to mark the start of summer. Even more than usual going on. There are often street musicians but a piano?! I’ve got to hand it to the guy and undoubtedly several strong friends who must have been there to help with with the piano. Surely brought in a van but setting up such a beast is no small feat.

Concert for kids – they seemed to know all of the words and were dancing around

Piano man near piazza Maggiore

As a part of the start of summer festival there was expanded dining into the main street in the center.

Puppeteer

Another band – not jazz this time.

Kiddie course for bicycles

Mime dancers – cute

A final note. Summer has indeed begun. Summers in Bologna can be pretty brutal and now we’re into the 90s on some days. Since it’s relatively humid here it can still be in the mid 60s even at 4:00 in the morning. Of course there are some advantages but I’ll save that for a later post.

This spring I have not really ventured away from Bologna. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because I did a lot of travel last fall or because it seemed that I almost always had someone to see on the weekend or even because I really just didn’t want to go anywhere alone this year as I did for 3 weeks last year. In any case I mentioned to Liu’ at the library that I was really interested in going to Chioggia. It is on the Adriatic sea not far Venice, at least as the crow flies (I wonder how one says that in Italian) and is sometimes described as a little Venice.

Red dot marks the spot for Chioggia

Also it’s a real working town in terms of fish and seafood which is probably means really good stuff to eat which if you’ve read many of my posts is a real priority for me. In any case Liu’ said, yea, let’s go. So we planned an outing for Sunday the 1st of June and off we went.

The original plan was to take the train, which is about two hours each way and not a bad deal. Well, it turns out it is a bad deal because to have a schedule so short there are only about 5 minutes for a train change at the station where the train from Bologna arrives  – and the trains just run every two hours so a miss would be a disaster. So Liu’ offered to drive instead.  I decided to walk from the house to Porta Saragozza which was really pleasant at 9:15 AM. There were very few people out and on Sunday almost nothing open so it was a different experience.

The empty portico walking toward Porta Saragozza on a Sunday morning

After we got to Chioggia we parked the car and walked into the center. It’s not particularly large town which is not a bad thing. Since it was a holiday weekend (June 2 is Festa della Reublica). A short digression here. The day celebrates the choice of republic form of government rather than a monarchy which was established by national referendum. The vote was surprisingly close with 54 % voting for republic vs 46 for the monarchy. Oh, yes, this was in 1946. But back to Chioggia and the holiday weekend. Given that is was a 3 day weekend there were a bunch of tourists in town, principally Italians it seemed. There is one main street with bunches of little touristy souvenir shops and Liu’ and I walked to the end near the port area to have a nice spritz and linger a bit just relaxing and watching the crowd.

View of a canal from the bridge near the port

Then we walked over a canal bridge to a parallel street which in contrast with the main street was almost completely deserted. We were, unfortunately, too late when we  happened upon the rather large fish market which would be a great thing for me to walk through. It must be full of fish just hours out of the water even a couple of hours earlier. But we were on the way to the main event – lunch. And what a lunch it was. One of the best meals I’ve ever had in Italy.

The raw fish and shellfish

First there was the carpaccio of fish and frutti di mare. Sadly Liu’ did not like (or perhaps was allergic to) scampi and shrimp so I was force, I tell you, forced to eat these incredibly delectable raw crustaceans. There were also clams, a scallop and an oyster as you can see. I’m not sure what the fish was, but as Liu’ said, it melts in your mouth. Just incredible.

The fantastic ravioli

Next a huge winner, the black ravioli. I don’t remember what it was filled with, it may have been ricotta but was fantastic as we both agreed. Again I was compelled to eat that shrimp and scampo (yes, there is a singular for scampi). Another digression, I just can’t help myself! Scampi in the U.S. is often used to describe a preparation for shrimp but a scampo, while similar is different. Note the long claw on the scampo. It is sweeter and more tender than a shrimp and I have really never seen them in the states. Perhaps you can find them in a REALLY expensive preparation somewhere where they are flown in overnight from the Mediterranean or Adriatic sea but it’s really worth eating them here where they are also expensive but commonly available. Now back to that interrupted lunch. We ate everything and used bread to soak up the melted butter. I considered licking the plate clean but that would really be rather crude don’t you think?

The seared tuna from “Taverna”

The other secondo was the big chunk of seared tuna. I was frankly disappointed in this one and I think that Liu’ was a little disappointed too. It was not as tender as I would have thought, perhaps not as good a cut from the fish and cooked a tad too much. It was nice to have the name of the restaurant written in mustard on the plate and it did go very well with the tuna. I’d never thought of that but certainly will in the future.  Let’s not forget the wine. With seafood, of course, white. Low alcohol is advised since Liu’ was driving and were were in the Veneto so the perfect choice was prosecco so that’s what we had and it was indeed the perfect choice.

The tiramisu

The grappa

At the end Liu’ ordered the tiramisu and I had a grappa. Both were excellent and Liu’ twisted my arm and INSISTED that I must eat some of the tiramisu. So I did. Excellent! A coffee at the end finished a meal to dream about.

We walked toward the exit and Liu’ simply said “ciao!” and went outside. I followed and said,”Liu’ but we need to go back in and pay.”. She said that she had taken care of it and it was her treat. I was left speechless. It was incredibly generous of her. This was not the end of the trip.

One fishing boat

A line of boats. Not prettified boats for tourists obviously

Instead of going back to the main street we walked along a street where the real work takes place. I always like this very untouristy parts of town. I wonder how many tourists wander over to this street and say, “oh nothing interesting to see here and turn back”? To me it’s sometimes the most interesting part of town. What do you think?

These are two interesting words that I’ve talked about here in Italy with others. The first, suggestivo, came up in conversation at a meeting called the Magic Door, organized by two American expats. The concept is that when you go through the door one cannot speak any Italian, only English. However one of the expats said that she couldn’t use any other word other than “suggestivo” to describe a concept because she had never figured out an English word that has the same connotation. “Suggestive” as you might imagine comes to mind but is usually used in English with a sexual connotation especially with regard to women that dress in a sexually provocative way. Well, yes, that’s true. So I thought a lot about that and came up with what I think is the perfect word for the same concept. That word is “ evocative”. It describes a scene or place that suggests something sort of magical, bringing strong emotion laden images to mind. Near where I live I found a good example of something “suggestivo”.

On via Orsoni

And here’s another that I found to be suggestivo in a different way.

Bicycle locks, one with a special message

The other word, “morbido” came up in conversation with Renata. It can be used in several ways. I first encountered it several years ago as a way of describing an essential characteristic of grappa. There are two types of grappa, secca and morbida (note the “a” ending because grappa is feminine and requires that the adjective follows suit). Secca is dry, more astringent you might say, while morbida implies smooth – definitely my preference. I have found that it also is used, for example to distinguish between another characteristic, an example is when I went to buy tomatoes and the woman asked if I wanted some that were “croccanti” or “morbidi” (masculine plural), The first means firm to the bite, or perhaps crunchy and the second, softer. It’s also used, for perhaps coffee (the context in which this word came up in conversation with Renata) or wine. In this context it can also mean smooth or a less strong taste.

Then we got into a discussion about wine. I said that rather than 100 point scale with wine I have a 3 point scale: good (buono), adequate (discreto) or somewhat disgusting (schifo). I must add a fourth level even below schifo. That would be a wine that you could use to ammazzare (kill) ants. This latter I would apply to something like Yellow Tail or Two Buck Chuck which no Italian would understand because I can’t imagine that anyone here would ever buy wine that is so bad that it wouldn’t even be good enough to cook with.

two buck chuck – need I say more?

Ditto