April 6

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I had a wakeful night, alas.  No particular reason that I can discern.  We are walking miles and miles every day.....

Today was the nicest day, weather-wise, that we've had.  Sunny and about 60, I think.

We walked downtown, detouring through a park for which we'd seen entrances on other days.  Lots of people (and dogs) enjoying the nice weather.  There is an area to the south of the park which fills up with people selling all manner of things.  I saw what looked like a complete spinning wheel a few days ago (who knows if it works, but it looked like it had all the necessary pieces).  Today what we saw, walking by, was tons of cheap clothing.  And I do mean cheap.  Shoes for 3 or 5 euro.........

There was all sorts of festivity downtown.  Many streets were closed for pedestrians, only, and there were some very good musicians busking.  I think that's the first time I've seen a street musician with a harp.  He was good, too.

People were everywhere, and vendors were selling balloons (including Winnie ther Pooh balloons), and bubble guns, and squeaky mechanical dogs.....  Little kids on scooters and bikes, and plenty of dogs.  I saw one real dog who was quite interested in the squeaky mechanical dogs, but, sadly, his dad did not buy him one.

When we got to the main square, we decided to go into a building that said you could see the ancient city through the floor.  That sounded intriguing.....

It turned out that at least part of the building is the library.  We were happy to visit a public library -- its existence makes Bologna seem even more like a real place.  Part of the floor in the main sort "where do I go from here?" room of the library does have a transparent floor, but you can't see much through it.  My daughter noticed that she could see people walking around down there, so we went down some stairs, and, sure enough, they are doing archeological excavations down there.  You could walk through it on suspended metal walkways, and there were signs (in Italian and in English, hooray!) telling you that this part was from Roman times and this part was medieval, and this was a well, and that was a cistern that served a botanical garden.....  Very interesting.  We were so glad we happened in.

I used the ladies' room while we were there.  The bathrooms were just stuck on one side of some of the stacks (but there was excellent signage).  That's the first time I've seen a bidet in a public bathroom.........

Then we went to find another church we'd seen on a postcard.  We couldn't find the view of it that was on the postcard (we thought we found the right place, but it was apparently now a parking lot for police vehicles, and no one was allowed in).

Then we wanted lunch.  Mydaughter had her plan all made for what we should have, only to discover that the place was closed on Saturdays.  So rude!  What about OUR needs????

Thinking about it now, I remember that I thought it likely that one of the groups of buskers were Jewish (all in hats, and the music sounded like Fiddler on the Roof.  The chosen restaurant specializes in a particular kind of flat bread with many different sorts of fillings.  Now I'm wondering if their closure today may be because of the Sabbath.

In any case, we found somewhere else to eat.  It was ok, but nothing great.  You can't win every time, I guess.

Then we went shopping.  My daughter likes a shirt or a scarf or something, as a souvenir, when she travels.  She got one of each today.

Then we started back for the apt, and got gelato on the way.  It's hard to choose a gelato when you don't know what 4/5 of them are....  One of the kindly workers asked me if I would like an English menu, and, yes, please, I would!  My raspberry sorbet was good, and my daughter's nougat gelato was also good (and more exotic).

We got back to the apt, and turned around immediately and went to the grocery.  I've been drinking up my fennel tea, so I wanted more.

I was confused about when we leave Bologna, by the way.  It's MONDAY we go, not sooner.  We found some round crackery bread "stick" called taratelli, I'm pretty sure, which are yummy.  We got some more of them, more tea, more yogurt, more applesauce, and toilet paper.  Don't you think when you rent an apt for a week or less they ought to make sure there's enough tp?

Humph.

We had asparagus and pasta with tomato sauce for dinner.  Easy, and yummy.

I'm going to do my best to get A LOT more sleep tonight, so I'll say buona notte.

Oh -- one last thought -- all these dogs everywhere, and none of them have had the least interest in talking to me until today.  I got to talk to and touch two soft and curly little dogs today.  Yay for friendly dogs!


Oops -- HERE is the last thought -- we don't leave Bologna until Monday.  Regardless of what I said earlier.  And now I am going to go drink my fennel tea and go to bed!



 In order to facilitate chronological traversal of these posts, here is a link to the next post.

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