10/17/18: Bologna

Got up early to get to the train to Bologna. Slipped through the streets with the ease of Ezio in Assassin's Creed 2, hopped onto the water bus, and showed up at the train station. Rode 1.5h to Bologna on a high speed train, the likes of which don't exist in America. Acela has nothing on this bad boy. 

The countryside is mostly flat and reminds me of the helicopter shots of any European bike race. The houses certainly look like people who were once ruled by Romans would live in, with plaster walls and tile roofs.

Upon arriving at the Bologna Centrale station, we dropped our bags off at the accommodating BnB and set off to tour and eat. Well, eat first then last. Lunch was randomly picked and adequate. 

We climbed one of the Two Towers and get some very nice aerial views of Bologna:

This is the medieval radial plan that supplanted the grid imposed by the Romans, with Renaissance architecture filtering in in bits and pieces. 

After the rousing climb up, we come down from 300ft and headed over to the walking tour. This was a fascinating mix of history, art, and engineering. As much as I bag on eurocentrism, what I learned was really fun. Probably the biggest two lessons:

- if there's one person who's really big in Italy, it's Jesus

- Bologna tried very hard to remain its own independent city state and succeeded for most of history

Well worth the 5 Euros it would have cost, if we hadn't plunked down for the blue all access Bologna Welcome card, which was 30 but makes a lot of things free. We'll be updating our savings tally tomorrow. 

Oh, we also ran into some local friends at the top of Asinelli tower. What a charmingly chance encounter.