A load of bolognese mercoledi 20th luglio 2011

A load of bolognese mercoledi 20th luglio 2011

Twice in one week I have had the pleasure to visit Bologna. My two visits sit almost perfectly equidistant of the life here in Italy.

The first: a cycle trip. Early jump on the train to get to Florence. Then a ride with two colleagues on the vecchia via bolognese - the old road to Bologna - twisty and turny with two moountain passes, both a little higher than Snowdon. A lovely ride, 107.7 km, 6 hours including breaks, beautiful weather 35C plus.

When we arrived in Bologna we found a bar by the main square, and took a beer. Then we found a restaurant next door and eat a wonderful lasagne bolognese. Our italian colleague got chatting to the waiter and we learned some interesting things, and even had a visit from the chef. The lasagne was made with lasagne verde - which the chef said was traditional for bologna and made a more perfumed dish. It was presented in a small square tower and with parmesan rather than other cheese. The ragu was amazing, and the chef said that it is made at least 9 hours in advance. And it was incredible - definitely the best lasagne that I have ever tasted, but I don't know if that was because I had just cycled over 100km over two mountains and had had a couple of beers! :)

In the square they had set up a huge cinema screen. This seems to be common in Italy in the summer. In Siena, in the fortezza (Fortress) there is "cinema nella stelle" cinema with the starts for two months every year. These activities provide a nice focus, of course it is easier to do when the weather is nice! When I was there last time, at the end of the cycling trip with Stuart last October, there was again something fun happening in the square - last time it was some sort of strange televised pantomine. Entertaining nonetheless.

The waiter that my colleague was talking to also told us a funny thing about Bologna. He said that it was famous for girls with large breasts, and gays. In fact he said that the restaurant that we were in would have 500 covers that night, 500 large breasted girls and 200 gays, and why were we leaving? We took our excuses and left, especially as our colleague thought that the waiter may have been in the latter category!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/99883249

Then on Tuesday night I had the pleasure to be in Bologna again. I had attended an audit in Germany and was flying back from Frankfurt to Florence - or so I thought. Florence is a beautiful city and is located in a basin, approximately 50 miles in land, surrounding by pretty significant mountains (see the cycle on Saturday!). This affects the airport - it is small, the runway is short, and it is notoriously affected by the slightest bad weather. The sea breeze, hot mountains, steep winds mean that flights are often cancelled or diverted. On this occasion we flew into a full on lightning and thunderstorm. The pilot tried and tried again to land the plane, before finally giving up and retreating to Bologna. As we flew away we could see the lightning storm taking place, almost in a ball in the air above Florence - it would have been beautiful if it were not for the fact that it was ruining my day! We flew away from Florence and into the worst storm ever. The plane was boucning up and down like I had never seen, and I was honestly getting a little frightened. Nobody was praying thankfully. I was annoyed that I was supposed to take a hire car when I landed in Florence but had not drunk anything - I needed a drink at that point. Again, we had terrible weather in Bologna and got the plane down after a couple of goes. This was the first time I have landed in Italy without a load of clapping and cheering from the Italians. Ha! One good thing.

At the airport carnage ensued. A bus was laid on but it wasn't big enough, people were standing in the bus, Italians were talking their heads off and it was raining like a monsoon. Coupled with the fact that the road from Bologna to Florence is frankly awful, goes up and down a lot (see Saturday) and is tight and twisty and generally uncomfortable - plus needing to get a €150 cab ride back from Florence to home made for a grumpy return at 3am and a tired start to the rest of the week.

Oh the yin and yang of living in Italy

Arrivederci!