Considering I was staying in one location for a while, I decided at least one little trip was in order. I eventually decided upon a weekend to Bologna as I had a friend I could stay with there - my friend Joe who I had met on my archaeological dig the year before in fact - and I had found cheap transportation there. One of the best ways to get around Europe (apart from the bus as it is so much cheaper than the train) is Blabla car. An easy to use website, it's made up of everyday people who are going from one place to another and want help with the gas money or simply company on the long drive. As such, the cost is far cheaper than public transport and often far more pleasant (not to mention faster than the bus).
By the time I arrived I really only had one full day and a morning, so it was a quick trip but well worth it. Back into Italy I took full advantage of the deliciously cheap restaurants, pizza and prosecco. Have I mentioned how much I love Italy?
Having arrived late Friday night, my friend and I spent the Saturday site-seeing. One of my favourite things was this statue, which may not look too exciting from this angle, but has a bit more to it if you know the story. This fountain of Neptune (commonly called il Gigante) was made by Jean de Boulogne - a young Flemish man - in 1566. However the singularity of this statue is due to the Church and its prudish ways. Jean wished to fashion Neptune with large genitalia and was infuriated by the Church's unsurprising opposition to this, so much so that he built the statue with its arm out and carefully designed the thumb so that from a certain angle to the side of the statue his wish was realized and can still amusingly be seen today. I'm not sure how true it was but apparently the church was so scandalized they had the statue wear bronze pants for a time - that I would have liked to see!
Bologna like many Italian cities is very old, having had settlements here as long ago as 1000 BC. It also has an Etruscan history as well as of course later on a Roman one.
The Basilica of San Petronio was the center piece of the piazza here, and standing as the fifteenth largest church in the world, it's not difficult to see why. I was confused by the sudden change of styles in this church, but Joe proved to be an excellent tour guide and explained it to me. Apparently in 1561 (keep in mind the church was begun in 1390) a revised plan was made which proposed to make the Basilica so large it would be greater than St. Peters Basilica in Rome. Pope Puis IV soon put a stop to these plans as the idea of anyone else having a bigger church was clearly an affront. He blocked the quarry of stone they were using so the grand structure was capped off short and became this oddity. One of the interesting things inside the church is one of the few depictions of Muhammad - due to this it has been targeted a number of times by terrorists (so far unsuccessfully) as they claim this is an affront to Islam. I made my trip inside somewhat quickly, mindful of the recent Paris attacks.
Another nifty piece of history were these towers, dating to between the 12th and 13th centuries, there were once up to 180 of them throughout the city. Now only a few remain and their purpose is uncertain, though it is thought they were perhaps for offensive and defensive purposes, and I suspect probably not a small amount of prestige. Sadly most of them were demolished or fell down, and only a few still stand.
A trip to Italy wouldn't be complete without gelato, and the tiny tucked away place we went even had Eggcream flavour! My favorite! The colour put me off as usually it's more of a white colour, but surprisingly it was absolutely delicious, and definitely as good (maybe slightly better!) than Grom's version as it was a little more lemony and creamy.
My blabla car on the way back was very good, the guy was nice and chatty and spoke excellent English. Better yet we picked up a lovely french lady called Amelie in Chamonix who had in fact studied in Australia! Her studies focused on Marine Biology and GIS techniques (geographic information system) which was interesting to chat about as I only knew a small amount about GIS and purely from an archaeological perspective, so seeing how widely it can be used was fascinating. GIS is basically used for capturing, storing and analyzing data related to the earths surface, creating a map, and can therefore show archaeological sites and capture their exact coordinates, but also be used for an array of different purposes.
Driving through Chamonix at night was very exciting for me as it had snowed! Real proper snow! Not just a light dusting on the ground but a good layer of it, and it was fluffy as anything. I froze my hands of picking it up and dropping it as we waited to pick up more passengers but it was well worth it.
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