Did Someone Say Free?

I have been taking advantage of any and all free activities that are offered to students here in these first couple weeks! In Florence there are many travel companies and a number of them are specifically designed for students. A company called bus2alps offered a free day trip to Bologna, Italy. We were given a small guided tour of the historic city, then we were taken to Eataly, which is supposedly considered the “Disneyland of Food.”

Bologna has seven secrets of the city and on our tour we were shown five. Among the five were the whispering walls of Palazzo del Podesta vault under the Arengo tower. If you face the walls that make up the corner whisper into it, the person standing in the exact opposite corner can hear you as if you were standing right next to them. It is said that it was here that lepers could give confessionals without getting too close to priests. We also saw the cieling inscription “Panis vita, canabis protectio, vinum laetitia” which translates from Latin to “Bread is life, wine is fun, cannabis is protection.” The story behind this is related to how Bologna was able to come into wealth by cultivating hemp in order to make and sell fabric. Additionally there is a ‘window to Venice’ where a street window gives way to the view of a canal in Bologna which makes it appear as if you are looking at Venice (debatable...) We saw much more, there is truely much more history packed into this one city than I had ever anticipated and I was very pleased with the fact I was able to go there for no cost!

The story behind this church is a bit funny, it went under construction with the architect’s intent it be the biggest and most ornate basilica; it was even set to be bigger than St. Peter’s in Rome. However, the Catholic Church would not allow a church in Bologna to take that claim and they put a stop to it. Thus, the church now sits half beautiful.. Yet it is still the 6th largest church in Europe so it has that going for it.

Eataly really was unlike anything I have ever experienced. I do not know what I was anticipating but this was not it. It's like a giant mall dedicated to the food of Italy. There are tons of vendors and restaurants from various regions of Italy to share the food that they are known for. There are also educational elements where they show the process of making the delicious goods they serve. Personally, I was amazed to learn that wheels of parmesan cheese are cleaned and turned every 15 days during their aging process. AND the aging process takes anywhere from 9-20 months! Wowza