Bologna

After a good long sleep, and an all you could eat continental breakfast, we all set off for a morning in Bologna. We divided up again. Brian and I were headed to off to see the sights, while the ladies went off to do some shopping. The only plan was to catch the Ryanair flight out of Bologna at 3:40.

Yet again, a big church is there to great your adventure in an Italian city...

Bologna itself isn't as packed with things to see as the last two Italian cities I was in. The city does, however, have the unique honor of being the home to the oldest continually operating center of higher education in the world. As this seal says, the University of Bologna has been operating since 1088. It has less than 80 years to go before it is 1000 years old.

We took a little peak in here, just for you dad :)

Most of the University's campus straddles the Via Zamboni. The buildings are clearly old and there is a lot of character on the University campus, both its people and its history. I took this picture just for the benefit of those friends of mine which also suffer from hockey madness.

Here are a few random photos from the city just to give you an idea of what it was like to walk through Bologna.



Here is my picture of the "Two Towers" of Bologna. Both of them are leaning fairly significantly. The buildings in the foreground should give you a good reference point.

Here are two pictures of the San Petronio Basilica. I know it looks unassuming in these two pictures, at least in its appearance. You can even see the unfinished front facade. If you haven't noticed already, take at the size of this church. It is huge, especially when you look at all the surrounding buildings. San Petronio is the fifth largest church in the world.


Here is the other famous sight at the center of town. The Fountain of Neptune in Bologna. It's fairly scandalous. Neptune is pointing with one hand and apparently from a certain angle on the other side of the fountain, it doesn't look like his finger. Alas, the sun was at that angle and I was unable to capture the image. Oh well, you can still see the naked mermaids at the base, each of which have two spouts. That's right two. As I said, scandalous.


So after this brief morning in Bologna, I walked through this little park, jumped on a bus and went to the airport. I was home by 9pm. It was a crazy weekend in Italy.