Bologna & Florence

I should probably begin this post by recounting a bit of the ferry ride between Split, Croatia and Ancona, Italy. First of all, Wes was insistent that we spend a bit of extra money so that we can sleep comfortably on the overnight trip.  We ended up springing for the VIP Suite – yes, that’s right, I said VIP Suite – which was HUGE and really not that expensive considering this was a night of lodging for the two of us while also serving as international transportation.

There were two beds, a full bathroom with shower and everything, and even a sitting room with table and chairs. It was hilarious.

Anyway, we arrived early in the morning in Ancona, and didn’t have to check into our hotel in Firenze (Florence) until later that afternoon. The four of us (Genevieve, Sy, Wes and I) decided it might be fun to stop in Bologna for the afternoon so that we could see that city as well given the fact that we’d have to pass through it on the train in order to get to Firenze.

Bologna is home to the oldest University in Europe, and maybe the entire western world (I’m not quite sure, I’ve heard conflicting things).  You could almost tell right away that this was not your usual college town. For one thing, the city had a long history that I don’t usually connect with American college towns. Bologna is actually renowned for its miles and miles of arcades, which are archways in front of buildings that provide not only shaded sidewalks but beautiful paths under lights and arches as you walk down the street. The buildings were old, and full of character, and the energy was palpable. There were students everywhere, even though it’s summer.

When we arrived at the “campus” of the university, we ran into a group of students celebrating some kind of academic achievement (though it could have just as easily been hazing for a fraternity), with people wearing laurel wreaths on their heads and togas on their bodies. They were carrying around bottles of champagne and laughing in large groups…I still am not completely sure what they were celebrating but it looked like tons of fun.  We had a quick bite in a student-run café/bar, and then walked around the center of the city until we had to run back to the station to catch our train.

We disembarked in Firenze and braved the insane heat to drop our stuff off at the hotel. Gloriana and Lizzie were

slated to arrive the next morning, so the four of us had some time to explore a bit before dinner. Sy ended up feeling a little under the weather so Genevieve, Wes and I had some dinner in the main square (in a restaurant where the Italian waiter kept flirting with me ruthlessly in front of Wes) before we decided that we would try and catch the new Harry Potter movie in the English-language cinema since we had little else to do.

As it turns out, we were attempting to kill the several hours before the show and saw people congregating in the courtyard of a huge historic building and went in to investigate. Fortuitously, we had happened upon a free concert given by the city featuring a famous tenor, soprano and pianist who sang several songs for the crowd in the beautiful evening.  We tried to get Sy up and out of bed in time to catch some of it, but by the time we returned with Sy in tow, we realized we had to head in to the theater because a huge line was forming and we needed three seats together.

Even though the real movie couldn’t hold a candle to the imaginary movie I had created in my mind for the book, viewing it was a fabulous experience. Accompanied by what seemed like the entire American study-abroad student contingent of Florence, we were able to watch it in a pristine old opera house which featured two floors of seating (we opted to sit on the ground level rather than the balcony for the sake of Wes’s legroom), and even provided a real-life intermission halfway through the movie!

The next morning we picked up Gloriana, the car, and Lizzie (in that order, of course), and headed for our villa in Tuscany! The next post will cover what we did during the week we were in paradise -  I mean, Toscana.

Pictures below!