Karl is not a big birthday celebrator but always loves a good bacon and eggs for breakfast. Try as we might, we could not find bacon a la strips to cook ANYWHERE. There is loads of cured meat and wonderful delicatessens but no bacon in the form we are used to. We settled for some cubed pancetta which fried up well with the eggs for his birthday Italian style! No-one complained!
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| Birthday breakfast - pancetta and eggs in nice Italian bread! |
We had a lovely Skype call with Karl's parents before heading out.
As
we realised last week that trains are very infrequent on our line on
Sundays, we walked into Bologna, about 6 kms. First stop was a coffee
and cake for birthday specials after walking through the lovely old town
past the two leaning towers. At this stage, Annika's sore neck was
bothering her and we relaised that if she and Tim were to hot foot it to
the station they would get the 12.33 back to Roveri. I went with them
just to make sure there was a train at that time as sometimes we have
found the trains to be unreliable. This worked out well because they
didn't want to go to the Pinoteca (Art Gallery) and Tim in particular
wanted to finish off a bit of school. It was good that we'd all had a
good bit of exercise anyhow!
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| Porta San Vitale - another one of Bologna's 13 th century city gates. |
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| Some of Bologna's repyted 40 kms of arches! |
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| Palazzo Fantuzzi 17 th Century - grand houses are scattered throughout Bologna's old town. |
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| This is a real live rabbit in its Sunday best! |
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| Porta San Donato - these old city gates look really sturdy - 700 plus years later. |
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| The Garisenda and Asinelli Towers are about to kiss! |
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| At the Pinoteca - an old convent is now a gallery |
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| Lots of renaissance art - St George is here slaying a dragon! |
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| Heaven and Hell - 1438 - very graphic: Luke went back three times to look at this painting. |
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| Madonna with child and saints - 15th Century |
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| Madonna and child with Elizabeth and John the Baptist - The light in these paintings was awesome! |
Luke,
Karl and I walked back to the Pinoteca where we had to wait 20 minutes
until the gallery opened after a lunch break! Only the Italians would
close their galleries for a lunch break! The gallery was mainly a
collection of paintings from 13th -17th Century, mostly religious in
nature with political overtones and it seemed that many had been rescued
from churches. There were a few rooms just of frescoes which had been
removed from churches. The church and state were depicted to reflect
the hierarchy with the Virgin Mary and Jesus clearly being the top of
the ladder.
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| There were a number of these type of paintings simply called Politico showing the hierarchy of governance: First, the Virgin Mary and Christ, then downwards to workers etc |
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| There were few non-religious paintings - these ones of dog owners were vaguely comical! |
Karl and I did wonder the other day what will happen to all the
beautiful art work on the walls on churches as congregation numbers
dwindle and the upkeep of buildings becomes unaffordable. To see some
preserved in museums is one way.
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| The archangel Gabriele comes to the virgin Annibale Carraci 1588 |
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| Mastodon |
We
had spotted the Geology Museum on the way and promised Luke we'd have a
look. He was so excited he was jumping! The museum is one of those
old and lovely ones we have come to know in Bologna with fairly ancient
cabinets of well categorized curios. But it was the skeletons and
dinosaurs we came to see! The most impressive one was of a Mastodon, a
mammoth like mammal with nearly 4 metre tusks!! AND it was the real
skeleton, not a replica! There was also a massive diplodoccus as well
as other smaller prehistoric bones. One other interesting skull was of
an extinct Italian sabre tooth lion. One of the Museum staff explained
that Italy used to be as hot as Africa and had elephants and lions.
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| Mammoth skull |
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| Thousands of specimens in cabinets! |
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| Diplodoccus |
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| Extinct Italian lion skull |
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| What every Italian kid would love on their walls |
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| Stone in shoe on the streets of Bologna! |
From the museum, it was a short walk to the station for the 1603 train -
otherwise we would have had to wait another 3 hours! Home for birthday
cake and pizza for dinner - Karl's request! And unfortunately packing
and submission of school work and other tedious tasks before we have
another bi move tomorrow. This time to Rome!
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| Birthday cake for afternoon tea! |
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| How lovely to have a birthday in Italy! |
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