Bologna & Rome 2022
Piazzas, Porticos & Pasta: Notes From Bologna
Bologna’s famous porticos are immediately evident even as we make our way from the railway station to our apartment close to the heart of the city – not surprising given just how far they extend through the city streets. Originally constructed from wood to provide additional display areas for shopkeepers, these attractive extensions now take on a variety of forms: sweeping brickwork arches, concrete and steel squares, segmented tunnels.
Handily providing protection from both the summer sun and the winter rain, these porticos stretch improbably for nearly 25 miles around Bologna’s streets, giving it something of a unique look. Well certainly unusual even if not unique.
Bologna enjoys a reputation as Italy’s culinary capital, lays claim to the world’s oldest university and boasts a wonderful collection of beautiful churches, palaces and towers. Its nicknames include La Dotta (“The Learned”), La Rossa (“The Red”) and, most amusing of all, La Grassa (“The Fat”), references to, in turn, its university, its architecture and its gastronomy.
Amongst the styles of pasta credited to Bologna is the tortellini which, according to legend, was the brainchild of a young chef who based the tortellini shape on the perfect navel of his master’s wife. Now this story may or may not be true, but all I can say is that I probably wouldn’t have been too enamoured if an employee of mine had based an invention on Michaela’s belly button.
The atmospheric streets, whether the tight cobbled alleys or the wider thoroughfares lined with grand palazzi, radiate from Bologna’s beating heart, the grand and enthralling Piazza Maggiore. With the towering Basilica di San Petronio forming one of the square’s four imposing borders, this is a place to marvel at the architecture as well as study its people as the whole city seems to make their way across its spaces at least once a day.
The Basilica’s unusual frontage looks unfinished – due in all probability to the fact that unfinished is exactly what it is, the grand plans for completion being thwarted by papal intervention when Pius IV diverted the previously allocated funds elsewhere. Bologna, it seems, has enjoyed a somewhat fractious relationship with the Vatican down the centuries.
Maggiore’s smaller neighbour, Piazza del Nettuno, has as its centre point an impressive 16th century statue and fountain of the sea god Neptune, which sports not only four voluptuous sirens who spurt water into the fountain by clasping their hands around their ample breasts to project water from the nipples, but also a certain delicate part of Neptune’s anatomy which is, shall we say, perhaps on the large side as classical representations of manhood go.
The Vatican’s horror at Giambologna’s creation, at one stage ordering the statue to be covered by a cloak, was, and still is, a source of amusement and smug satisfaction to the Bolognese. A small victory still resonating nearly 500 years later!
A short walk east from Maggiore are the “Due Torri” (two towers), remnants of a time when wealthy families indulgently built these narrow erect structures as an ostentatious demonstration of wealth and power. At one time there were in excess of 120 of these things, such was the prosperity of trading in the narrow streets below. Nearly 20 are still standing.
The Due Torri, the city’s two most imposing iconic and potent symbols of medieval wealth, were built by two of those rich merchant families and, although one has been subsequently shortened for safety reasons, they remain mightily impressive. Both of them lean a considerable angle from upright – in differing directions – their proximity to each other adding to the slightly comical asymmetrical scene. The two towers bear the name of those two wealthy families to this day – Asinelli and Garisenda.
Ascending Asinelli is one way of working off some of the calories, it’s a calf-sapping 498 steps up a tight spiral staircase before we emerge out on to the platform way above the city where the views across the red rooftops make every step worthwhile. From up here you really get a sense of the size of Bologna’s churches, and just how many there are, as well as the unmistakable source of the city’s “Red” moniker.
Each church we visit is a cavernous and expansive building, the huge vaulted ceilings way above us carrying elaborate and extensive frescoes with intricate detail, the Cattedrale di San Pietro possibly even rivalling San Petronio for both vastness and detail. These ceilings are mesmerising – in fact it is said that the Sistine Chapel owed much to a visit to Bologna by an impressionable young Michaelangelo.
South west of the city high up in the Bologna hills and visible from all vantage points throughout the city, the Santuario della Madonna di San Luca presides in pinkish glory over the rolling countryside. In this city of porticos (“portici”) the pilgrimage route up the hillside is the most stunning portico of all, its near-700 arches snaking their way more than two miles from a downtown piazza to the very foyer of the majestic “Luca”, making it indisputably the longest continuous portico in the world.
With a scaling of both Asinelli and the clock tower behind us, we opt out of the 2-mile climb and instead take the tourist road train with its informative commentary up the long and winding road, way up to this most stunning and majestic of buildings. Inside, like just about all of Bologna’s houses of worship, there is a large and detailed carving of the death of Christ which, again like the others, is most noticeable for the painfully sorrowful faces of those tending the body.
And so to the food scene in this city with such an admirable gastronomic reputation. After a false start with two disappointingly bland pasta dishes, this visit has since thrown its welcome blanket around us and fed us a succession of delicious meals with the highest quality produce. Successive neighbourhoods reveal clusters of cosy and tempting trattoria, lively osteria and buzzing pizza houses.
Where to begin? Tortellini in brodo, the belly button pasta in a consommé-like broth, and taglieri, a giant charcuterie board with the revered mortadella as its centrepiece, both form excellent lunches. But at night the choice is almost endless, with tagliatelle al ragu (the traditional bolognese dish – it is NEVER spaghetti!) just one of a whole range of pastas available, alongside beautifully prepared meat or vegetarian dishes with sauces and accompaniments to die for.
Parmesan and balsamic in its home territory. Caponata from heaven; grilled aubergine oozing high class olive oil; deliciously light egg pasta, often with herb-heavy fillings…and just the most deliciously tender cuts of pork and beef you can even imagine let alone wish for. Michaela even has a “Visalia moment” and declares one beef fillet the best she’s ever tasted. We came with high foodie hopes to this renowned destination and have rather wonderfully found our expectations exceeded. This place is absolutely the food heaven of its reputation. And we haven’t even mentioned the wine.
Sangiovese is the grape from which Chianti is made – any wine named Sangiovese is made from the same grape but cultivated outside of the Chianti hills. It just seems to be the perfect accompaniment to Bologna’s cuisine.
Tucked in the alleys just off Maggiore, the Quadrilatero district is packed with thriving eateries. Here, in an even tighter alley, Vicolo Ranocchi, lies an unassuming doorway, no sign above it, through which we can see walls adorned with many ageing photographs.
Had we not ventured through that doorway, we would never have discovered what goes on in this tiny corner of Bologna. More to follow…
From Bologna To The Eternal City
Our last post left us going through an unassuming unmarked doorway in amongst the restaurants of Bologna’s Quadrilatero district and entering a parlour full of evocative old photographs. Many show the famous faces of previous visitors to this strange little room: here Mohammad Ali’s autographed golden boxing glove, there Richard Nixon, then Tony Bennett, even a laughing Marilyn Monroe.
This is Bologna’s oldest inn, the Osteria del Sole, where the wine has flowed since 1465 and been quaffed not only by the glitterati but also by the learned intellectuals from the university, students and professors alike. Yet the joy of “del Sole” is as much about its custom as its history: it is in effect a restaurant without a kitchen.
The drill is: you go to the street market stalls or the fabulous deli shops of Quadrilatero, buy your food and take it to del Sole, choose a bottle of wine from del Sole’s list and head to a shared table. Now spread out your picnic, pour the wine, and enjoy. A big part of the fun is that everyone does it: every table is covered with sumptuous foods and there is hardly a spare seat in the house. Choose well and it’s a great experience. Any of the deli shops will happily slice off the required quantities of hams and cheese, but Tamburini, a delicatessen legend in this city of food stories and, like del Sole, a Bologna institution, feels just the right place to buy.
And so from gastronomy to learning. It’s impossible to miss the high intellect of the Palazzo dell’Archiginnasio, the first permanent site of the university, built in 1563 and occupied as a place of learning until relocation to its current home in 1803. The wood panelled halls and corridors echo with history and resonate to the names of the great and good who studied and/or lectured here: Marconi, Rossini, Galvani, Umberto Eco…..four Popes, Thomas Becket….Michaelangelo, Enzo Ferrari…..the list is seemingly endless.
The corridors and stairs are adorned with the heraldic coats of arms of student families – an incredible 6,000 different families are represented here. All across the city, Bologna’s reverence to the intelligentsia is plain to see: the greatest tombs and memorials here are those of philosophers, scientists and the like, rather than warmongers or bellicose heroes.
As we head off towards the railway station in the Friday morning sun, we feel that we’ve properly experienced Bologna: we’ve been absorbed by its “Dotta”, marvelled at its “Rossa” and utterly indulged in its “Gasso”. Now, a satisfyingly smooth 2-hour train journey through rolling Tuscan scenery brings to that most magical and thrilling of cities…Rome.
This is Michaela’s first visit to Rome, I’ve been a couple of times before. Such is the glory of this magnificent city that the start of a break here is almost overwhelming – there are so many wonderful sites, so many things to do, that simply planning how to optimise the stay is a challenge all of its own.
One of Rome’s more modest fascinations is its Italian stone pine trees, also colloquially known as umbrella trees, their unusual lofty canopied shape forming part of the city’s character and blending perfectly with the mighty buildings and ancient ruins.
With this being Michaela’s first time, of course we have to “do” the big sites, all of which have extensively documented histories and need no deep descriptions here, where our photographs will do the talking. As we make our first few forays into the city, there is ample evidence that tourism is returning to normal – with our arrival coinciding with the weekend, Rome is absolutely teeming with visitors.
The Trevi fountain, its waters glinting either in sunlight or floodlight, is its usual attraction for photo opportunities and coin throwing at any time of day – but what a sumptuous creation it is. We tour the Forum in warm autumn sunshine, stand gazing at the sheer size of that forerunner of great stadia, the Colosseum, marvel at the huge scale detail of Vittorio Emanuele, swoon at the grandiose piazzas – Navona is still a favourite – and relax in back street trattoria.
Coming to Rome and seeing the Colosseum completes a neat double for us this year, having visited El Jem in Tunisia, North Africa’s Colosseum, back in April. It’s interesting to make comparisons between the two, not least the fact that we almost had El Jem to ourselves, very different from the thronging crowds here in Rome.
There is an element of Rome though which sets it apart from most other cities, something which is best unravelled on foot: just simply the huge number of wonderful buildings. Every turn brings another delight, many of which remain unidentified and anonymous on the maps and in the guidebooks. Huge buildings beautifully decorated, ornate fountains of multiple designs, giant statues and columns on ordinary traffic junctions or standing shoulder to shoulder with the designer shops.
With so much to see, it’s easy to overdo it in a city like Rome. We’ve walked over 20 miles in our first two full days here, the constant stimulation meaning we hardly notice the distances walked, until the end of the day when we finally take a breather and find that our tanks are empty. This really is a wonderful city. And there’s several more days yet to try and fit it all in……
Stories And Histories: More Days In Rome
On our previous travels we have visited the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz in Krakow and walked through the chilling and horrific histories at Auschwitz and Birkenau, wandered through the former ghettoes of Venice, Thessaloniki and others, visited Jewish museums in several cities as well as Ann Frank’s House in Amsterdam, learning again and again of the bigoted persecution of people of that faith.
Even so, there is a different element to Rome’s equivalent, the former ghetto now known as Communita Ebraico, knowing that creation of this particular ghetto took place under the watchful eye and direct personal instruction of the Pope, who ensured that, as with all other ghettoes, the Jews were confined within impenetrable walls and given appallingly small measures of both living space and food rations.
After over 300 years of life in the ghetto, the 20th century brought with it fascism and holocaust. A plaque on the wall here bears the date of October 16th 1943, when 1,023 Jews were herded on to a train from Rome to Auschwitz: only 16 of them survived.
I suppose we should say at this point that we are not of the Jewish faith, or any other faith for that matter, neither of us having had a religious upbringing, so open minded learning about different faiths has been a continuing theme of our travels.
The Jewish quarter is now a lively and attractive district, restaurants lining the cobbled streets, thankfully with little evidence of the previously cramped living conditions. Like in Kazimierz, Jewish and kosher restaurants endure, celebrating rather than persecuting a particular race, though there is a different slant to the food: gone are the fruity elements of the meat dishes of Kazimierz, replaced by liberal usage of herbs such as garlic and rosemary. Oh, and there’s crispy fried artichoke – a delightful appetiser and a new one on us!
Close by here is the strange looking Teatro Marcello, a smaller version of the Colosseum which once housed up to 20,000 spectators. Beginning in the 16th century, the ruins of this grand theatre were progressively adapted to form the living quarters of a succession of wealthy families, resulting in the curious half-theatre, half-housing appearance the theatre has today. The upper parts are now private apartments – what an unusual place to live.
And so to the Vatican, where thankfully we’ve pre-booked “skip the line” tickets for a timed arrival – we say thankfully because the ticket queues are already stretching way down the street. We tour the once hidden Vatican gardens before entering the buildings themselves, where we find ourselves in the same place as what feels like a considerable percentage of the world’s population.
It’s slow going, to say the least, shuffling in this giant herd of people from room to room, gallery to gallery, nose to tail human traffic inching forward. By the time we reach a decision point between “long tour” and “shorter tour”, both of which end up at the Sistine Chapel, it’s become clear that if we take the longer option we may well lose the will to live long before we reach Michaelangelo’s masterpiece.
Even on the shorter route, it’s a long time before the shuffling herd squeezes through the corridors into the Sistine Chapel, where, necks craned, everybody absorbs the wonder of the most famous ceiling in the world. In doing so we feel a little underwhelmed. Maybe it’s the tortuous approach, but we’ve been to many other great places that have more of a wow factor than here. Sorry, Michaelangelo, sorry everyone, but for us this is one place where the reality falls a bit short of the hype.
That’s not the case with St Peters Basilica though, where the sheer splendour of the interior more than matches the imposing and glorious exterior. Reaching out like welcoming arms, Bernini’s beautiful colonnades create the wide open spaces in front of the basilica which fill to capacity during papal sermons. The whole of the square, the colonnades and the basilica itself, when approaching from Mussolini’s sweeping Via della Conciliazione, is surely one of Europe’s most stirring views.
A short hike along this wide street brings us to Castel Sant’Angelo, originally constructed as Hadrian’s tomb then later fortified and incorporated into the city walls by an embattled Vatican. In fact, a covered and fortified walkway, some of which still remains, provided an escape route directly from the Vatican to the castle for Popes under siege. There’s something vaguely amusing about imagining the papal entourage scuttling for their lives down a corridor. Isn’t there?
Climbing to the highest point of the castle ramparts affords us wonderful 360-degree views of the whole of Rome and the surrounding hills, the many domes of this glorious city pushing above the rooftops. The absence of any ”new” part of town is also noticeable: unlike most cities there is no obvious area of high rise, no Canary Wharf, no ”financial district”. No, this city retains, and fiercely hangs on to, its heritage.
Our time here is not quite done, there is still more to see before we leave the eternal city.
Concluding Rome & Heading Home
The sun continues to shine from cloudless skies – as we enter the second half of October and near the end of this short Italian sojourn, temperatures of up to 29 degrees surprise and delight us. We had hoped for sunshine but this warmth has been a big bonus, so perfect for exploring the two wonderful cities of Bologna and Rome.
Tucked into the tight streets between the Trevi fountain and Piazza Navona, The Pantheon is a remarkable and beautiful building, boasting the widest masonry dome in Europe which in turn houses the oculus through which sunlight cascades in spectacular shafts. The whole place is fabulous.
The walls are adorned with vivid and colourful murals, ochre colours reflect the concealed lighting, statues gaze respectfully down towards the exquisitely tiled floor. Originally a pagan temple, this unique and splendid building has remained largely unaltered through its 1900-year history, hiding its utter glory behind giant bronze doors. The spectacular dome is precisely as high as it is wide, 142ft in each case. It is said that witnessing the rain, or indeed snow, fall through the oculus is a magical sight – our sun drenched days here mean we don’t get anywhere near witnessing that particular spectacle but there is such an enduring charm here.
Artists and kings are entombed within this glorious rotunda, where simply standing and staring fills the visitor with a real sense of being somewhere special. Everything about The Pantheon is gripping, even down to its bench pews in a gentle radius design and the imperceptible slopes of the flooring designed to drain away the rainwater.
Lugo di Torre Argentina, the ancient site at which Julius Caesar met his demise, is noteworthy for two reasons as well as its mighty historical significance: one, that the famous extensive feral cat colony appears to have been largely dispersed and only a few cats remain, and secondly that its status as the hub of the tram system has also moved on. Rome’s trams are nowhere near as conspicuous as they used to be: in the 20-odd years since I last came here, central Rome has reduced its tram network just as cities back home have been building theirs.
Some lines do still operate, but we don’t see any evidence of this despite walking many miles around the city – until, that is, our very last move, on the bus from city to airport, when at last a couple of heavy old trams rumble by.
Nevertheless the public transport system here remains useful and efficient as far as buses, metro and suburban trains are concerned, even if the trams are less visible. In reality though Rome seriously rewards those who explore on foot, it is a wonderful city through which to wander, with or without purpose.
Just south of Piazza Navona, the once thriving flower market at Campo di Fiore is now an amalgam of fruit and veg and pasta stalls, some souvenir sellers, and a whole gamut of attractive trattoria. Its character may have evolved but its spirit has remained – lively by day and night, there is a buzz and atmosphere here which is so stimulating that we just don’t want to walk away. Its verve is infectious.
Even after all of Rome’s delights, our last port of call brings one last surprise. Santa Maria Maggiore is reputedly the second favourite church of Romans, after you-know-where. As we enter its huge doorway, we are greeted by a bright, thrilling splendour, so bold and so colourful, its wide open central spaces augmented by beautiful side chapels in each direction. After all Rome has delivered, here is one last spellbinding sight, a truly beautiful church.
It’s been full on here and we have completely filled our days, and yet somehow still feel that we have only scratched the surface, such is the seemingly endless number of places to see and things to do. What an amazing, absorbing, wonderful city.
Bologna and Rome have thrilled us, Italy has again enhanced our love of all it has to offer. A shorter trip by our standards, yet filled with thrills.
Time to return home, just for a while.
