Sometimes your plans just don't work out. We had heavy rain and thunderstorms over night so we thought we'd cancel our trip to Modena, but then this morning the forcast looked better for Modena so we decided to go, but later than first planned.
The rail station is only a couple of minutes away so we bought our tickets from a machine and headed to the electronic board that tells what platform you want. It was chaos, as was the crowd milling around. It became obvious that the storms had caused major problems and many trains heading north were severely delayed or cancelled. We spent a lot of time waiting and searching for updates; once we even got on a train before an announcement made most people get off again. Eventually we decided to give up as it would be too late to go; trains were 'in ritardo' late for crazy numbers like 200 minutes.
So we pulled out our coupons and headed for Gilberto, a drogheria. Drogheria is translated as grocer, however this shop was much more. We were to sample balsamic vinegar and parmesan cheese, two local products for which they are extremely proud.
First we were handed little wooden spoons on which they poured a small amount of three balsamic vinegars. Balsamic is made like port and is aged. Our samples were aged 4, 12 and 24 years. The twelve year one was really good.
Then we were given a sample of cheese with balsamic on it. Like all things, good quality product can change your mind.
We kept seeing things that led us in different directions but eventually we stopped at the place where we had the coupon pizza on Wednesday. This one is a white pizza, no tomato sauce, with zucchini and olives. Note the zucchini flowers which give the pizza a special taste.
More wandering, more unusual things, more beautiful porticoes (portici if you are Italian.)
The Sanctuary of the Madonna of San Luca is on top of the Colle della Guardia, 300 metres above Bologna. From Porta Saragozza there are 3.8 kms of continuous portico that has 666 archways. It is part of the World Heritage List. We decided to take the little tourist train up and walk back, however we had had a long day on our feet so returned on the train too.
The icon in the centre of the arch is their prized possession and the reason for many pilgrimages.
From the stairs we could see the back of the portico as it snaked its way up the hill.
Many people were nearing the end of the climb as we walked a very small sector.
Riding down I was able to get this photo.
As we were heading home we noticed that the Sala Borsa Library was open. This is the public library near the Statue of Neptune. As is common in Italy, this beautiful building is situated on a variety of ancient ruins. We were able to visit this archaelogical area.
On the way back home we stopped off for gelato and some rest for the feet. It was a good thing because we wanted to go to the Trenitalia desk to see if we could reschedule our trip to Modena or get a refund. The ticketing area looked little better than it did this morning. Kel took a ticket from the machine, its number was 1063, then we looked at the board and saw that the current client at the desk was number 991. Oh, no! It took 55 minutes, standing in a crowd, in heat and wearing masks for us to get served.
Luckily our man was very good, spoke great English and had a sense of humour despite the day they must have had. He happily reissued our tickets for tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment