After our visit with St. Catherine of Bologna, we decided to take a cab up to the Sanctuary of the Madonna of San Luca.
Now, you can hike up here via the porticoes but it was about 100 degrees with the heat index and not a cloud in the sky so ... nope.
But there's good history up here and the views from around the sanctuary are stunning! So we took a cab!
I also liked the pretty manicured lawns here.
There has been a church here since about 1160 when a pilgrim named Euthymius brought the Byzantine icon of the Madonna (supposedly painted by Saint Luke himself!) all the way from Constantinople to this spot on the Colle della Guardia. They were presently having mass -- we didn't go in any farther so we did not disrupt them but that is the icon of the Madonna above the priest's head.
Instead, we decided to head up to the viewpoint. The stairway to the top of the Sky Experience is narrow and winding, but thankfully there are a few spots you can stop, take a break and look out.
This particular room had some of the tools used in the construction of the dome way back in 1774. They predate the USA!
Naturally, it's Europe and Todd doesn't fit anywhere. But he didn't bump his head!
From here you can see why one of the names of Bologna is "La Rossa" or - "The Red One" because of the red tile roofs.
You can only see a part of the old town section of Bologna from the dome - and you can't go up the stairs over Todd's head for a better view. Here, we are about 138 feet up from the ground, or almost a thousand feet above sea level.
I mean, really! What a view of the Apennines mountains to the south of the dome!
This is looking to the west - it's less mountainous in this direction.
After we trekked back down, we had to snap a picture of the dome that we were just walking around.
And back outside, from here you can see the very long red tile covered portico that takes you all the way down to Bologna. It's a part of the longest continuous portico in the world at 2.4 miles long!
I love that little lone cloud on the horizon. Plus there are people here for scale.
There are 666 arches on the world's longest continuous portico... that's an interesting number for something that takes you to a sacred place! We made another executive decision NOT to take the portico walkway back to the city, even though it was downhill this time.
We attempted to get an Uber but none of them wanted to go all the way up to the Sanctuary so we opted to take the San Luca Express "train" back down to the city.
The train took us back to the Porta Saragozza and was much easier than walking the 45 minutes via the portico in the almost 100 degree heat! Plus, you got to listen to a little commentary about what you were seeing along the way.
Back down in the center of town, we wanted to climb up one of the many towers that they still have in Bologna so we went to the Torre dell'Orologio, or the Clock Tower. We chose this one mostly because this is a tower you can actually climb that isn't leaning or condemned.
But we got there a bit too early for our scheduled time, so we decided to check out the Municipal Art Collection, which is super funny to me because their little city art collection blows away much of what we have here in American art museums. I mean, just look at these rooms! Two giant Bailey boys for scale.
This was my favorite painting of the day. Welp, we got their heads done. We'll leave the rest for later!
It's hard to imagine what Bologna looked like when there were around 100 towers across the city, but this little diagram of Medieval Bologna really shows the scale of it! Most towers were built between the 12th and 13th centuries, perhaps for defensive reasons or maybe as a status symbol for the rich families of Bologna. Now there are only 24 towers that remain standing, of which you can really only climb the Torre dell'Orologio.
So that's what we did! This tower has the 46th largest clock face in the world! And the second largest in Italy! Superlative?
This tower also has the craziest method of ascent, in which you have to basically sign your life away before you go up.
But the views are really amazing, so of course it's worth it!
Up here, you can appreciate the size of the Basilica di San Petronio and can imagine how much larger it would have been if the Pope had not gotten his way!
That blazing sun was... blazing.
He's as tall as a tower, folks.
Look at the tall tower here - and look to the base where the church seems to jut out just a bit. This is where they started to make one of the transepts before Pope Pius IV put a stop to that in the mid 1500s.
Fun fact: This is the largest brick Gothic church in the world! Superlative, check!
Hey, we were just out there at the Sanctuary of the Madonna of San Luca!
I love these boys!
After our visit to the tower, we were quite hungry for some pizza! So we took a recommendation from the British family who were with us on our food tour and went to Pizzeria Nettuno (or Neptune's Pizzeria).
It was SO GOOD!
On the way back to the hotel, we walked past the Torre Azzoguidi, which was built in the 12th century and is currently the second tallest tower in Bologna, although it was probably taller than this at one point. Many towers that are still standing were taller before they had to truncate them due to safety reasons.
Walking along the Via Altabella with my best son, heading back to the hotel after a great dinner.
Our cool hotel had a nice bar where Todd and I went down to grab a drink after we got back. They gave us a bunch of snacks, but we were still stuffed from dinner. Of course, they also gave me my drink in several different parts, as they always do with a bourbon and Coke Zero in Europe.
We may never stop this tradition.
And every single time we do that, he sends it to his friends. Isn't our hotel so pretty?
Have mirror, will selfie.
We got back and found Grant just like this. Jet lag is so real, especially after another long day!
Let's talk about BREAKFAST! This place had an amazing breakfast buffet. I would highly recommend the Royal Hotel Carlton if you are ever in Bologna!
I'm not even a huge breakfast person and they had all kinds of goodies to enjoy here. Gimme all the pastries!
Our hotel felt more like a museum than a hotel in some places. In some ways, it felt like it was right out of the 1980s, and in many other ways, it was one of the nicest places we have ever stayed! I appreciated the nostalgia.
The last thing we did in Bologna before taking the train to the Cinque Terre was the free walking tour. We usually do that first, but we wanted to make sure we could fit the food tour in and those don't always have the same set time limit, so we did that the previous day when we didn't have to catch a train out.
We started the tour near the two towers - Garisenda & Asinelli. As you can see, Garisenda Tower is leaning heavily - they say it's leaning more than the Leaning Tower of Pisa! It was originally 200 feet tall but was lowered to its current height of 157 feet in the 14th century. The current lean is 10 feet! As you can see at the base, they have begun to solidify it, so it does not collapse.
This was one of the coolest things we saw on our free walking tour. Casa Isolani was built in the 13th century and has one of only a few original wooden porticoes that still remain today. They stopped using wood in 1567 due to the fire hazard - they moved toward more of a stone or terracotta portico. But the cool story here isn't that this is one of only fewer than five remaining wooden porticoes. It's the three arrows that are still lodged in the wood above the street. See the piece of wood that is sort of white-ish? Look to the board to the left of that.
There are a few theories as to how these arrows got there, but the best story is that there were three assassins trying to murder a wealthy man who lived here by shooting him through the windows upstairs under the portico. When they arrived to complete the job, a beautiful - but nude - woman appeared in the window where they were aiming and hoping to hit their target. They were so shocked that they just... missed! The arrows landed here and were never removed.
This arrow is closer to the top center part of this picture, 9 meters up above us.
We walked through Casa Isolani and to the Piazza Santo Stefano, which is in the back yard of Casa Isolani. As you walk through the building, you can find a hotel, art galleries and even a couple of restaurants. No arrows on the back side of the building, though!
The Piazza Santo Stefano is strangely triangle shaped, has some stunning architecture and a bunch of 10th-13th century churches that overlook the piazza.
Me and my bud on the streets of Bologna.
One of our last stops was the University of Bologna. This is the oldest university in the western world (their words), founded in 1088. 1088! Only 22 years after William the Conqueror invaded England!
That's cool that we are at the oldest university, but EVERYONE needed this water bottle refilling station on the right. It was so hot.
Notable students who have attended this university over the years include Pope Alexander IV (late 1400s-early 1500s Pope), Pope's Gregory 13 and Gregory 15, Copernicus, Cassini, Guglielmo Marconi (founder of the radio), and Stefano Domenicali (the current CEO of Formula One!)
One final stop was at the Torre Galluzzi, which currently houses the Trattoria Da Me, a Michelin recommended (though not rated) restaurant. It was built in 1257, and the original door was waaaay up there (about 30 feet up) where they entered for about 800 years.
Our tour guide also told us that there was also a young woman named Virginia Galluzzi who lived here. She was in a Romeo and Juliet type of relationship when she fell in love with the son of the rival Carbonesi family (Alberto), marrying him in secret. The girl's family killed her young husband, leading her to hang herself in the tower. It may be just a story, or it may be real... we will never know!
And finally, we were back at the Piazza Maggiore to say one final goodbye to Neptune.
Because our next stop was the hotel to pick up our suitcases and head over to the train station to hop on a train bound for La Spezia, via Parma!
We didn't have a ton of time in Parma, but we did have enough time to grab some train station pizza and a beer and a Fanta. Even train station pizza in Italy is better than most pizza in America!
Also, please note to the left of Grant's head: That's Todd. Standing as he ate his meal because there was not room for him at our table.
Train riding in Europe is so much fun. It's so much easier than dealing with the stress of driving. Mostly.
You get to watch castles and rivers and thunderstorms go by. I don't know that I've ever taken a more perfect picture that describes the things I love most in life (that isn't my family!)
Even mostly dry riverbeds with heavy vegetation are cool floodplains.
Until next time, Bologna!
