This certainly seems to be an understated city. We took the bus downtown this morning to find the main street all ripped up. It made walking around a bit difficult but we visited some of the main sites. Our real destination was the Music Museum, which turned out to be very interesting.

Housed in an old building with refurbished frescoes adorning each room, the museum pays homage to Giovanni Battista Martini, a Franciscan friar, who although he never left his monastry had an immense effect on the musical life of his day. Counted amongst his counterpoint students were Bach’s son and Mozart.  The museum also houses a large array of original musical scores, including a signed copy of Rosinni’s Barber of Saville, and many rare instruments.

Bologna is evidently the food capital of Italy and so for lunch we stopped at a nice restaurant in the downtown quarter. I have a pasta dish with asperagus and bacon with a cream sauce that was really delicious. Gwereeorge had traditional tortelinni which he didn’t really enjoy. The rogue ingredient was nutmeg!

I stayed at the hotel this afternoon while George went off to do his laundry. By the time he returned and had a nap, it was dinner time so we walked back into town and settled on a steak house.

Since this is a relatively short post, I thought I’d give you some of our impressions of Italy:

  • we haven’t seen too many businesses (ie – commercial buildings) in the cities we’ve been in so we’re wondering where everyone works
  • the pace of life seems to be quite a but slower here – much like the rest of Europe we’ve visited
  • people are generally friendly and try to speak English more than we try to speak Italian
  • public toilets are unique – bowl with no seat
  • it’s easier to travel around that we might have thought although George finds the towns a bit more nerve-wracking than Toronto – not only does he have to deal with the gear shift but just about every block has a zebra walk mid-block so you’re always on the lookout for pedestrians
  • motorcycles are rediculous with no regard for solid white lines, rows of cars stopped at a red light or speed limits
  • as in the rest of Europe it’s difficult to eat early – in Italy there’s a tradition of aperitif from 5 – 7pm and many restaurants provide free snacks – dinner service pretty much doesn’t start until 7:30 or 8pm
  • our one rule is no parallel parking and so far we’ve been successful with that
  • while we have four English TV channels tonight…not one is showing The Masters – boo hoo!