After saying our goodbyes to Daniel and Mish in Milan, we boarded a second train to Bologna, Italy. When we were planning Italy we went back and forth on spending more time in Rome or splitting it with another city that we hadn’t been to, we ultimately decided to spend four nights in Bologna. My friend Katie had spent a year of her Masters program studying at John Hopkins University in Bologna and I had heard great things (and I mean I love bolognese sauce). We arrived in Bologna mid afternoon and walked to our Airbnb which happened to be in a great spot close to the city center, grocery stores, and tons of restaurants. The apartment studio was tiny and felt more like a hotel but with a stove and small fridge but it suited our needs for our stay, especially considering we weren’t planning on doing much cooking since we were in the supposed “food capital of Italy”. We went out for dinner, wandered the streets and somehow got stuck in a new routine of staying up late and sleeping in late, which ended up being hard to break. Some of our highlights were climbing the Asinelli tower and getting a view of the city, hiking to San Luca - a church on the hill with a long portico of arches leading up to it, wandering the streets of the university area which was as flooded with students (we actually felt we fit in for a change as we were wearing our backpacks). We learned it’s actually the oldest university in Europe (established in 1088 crazy!) and Wikipedia says it had about 80,000 students! (50,000 undergrad and 30,000 graduate.) We also noticed the architecture of Bologna which was different then other parts of Italy (at least from what we’ve seen). A lot of the streets had walkways lined with tall archways which nicely separated pedestrians from the cars. After doing some research we learned the reason for this is because back in the day the city population grew so fast with the influx of students and they needed to build more housing so these archways allowed them to extend buildings to create more apartments. We also stumbled upon some of the “hidden secrets” of Bologna - a window overlooking a hidden canal, the whispering walls, and a building with 3 medieval arrows in the ceiling. All in all, great experience in Bologna - kind of felt like Rome on a smaller, less chaotic scale, and there were lots of college aged people everywhere (and less tourists).
We left Bologna around 11 AM to head to the train station to catch our train to Rome. We took a high speed direct train (fastest and most crowded we had been on) but we got to Rome pretty quickly and took a bus from the train station to Trastevere, the area we were staying in. Al and I had both been to Rome in the past but we were excited to experience it together. Trastevere is also where I lived when I studied abroad five summers ago so I got a lot of nostalgia as we got off the bus. I was surprised how much I remembered the streets and my way around! Al was impressed with my navigation skills for once and not even having to look at Google Maps. We got gelato while we waited for our Airbnb host to arrive to show us the apartment. Finally our host Paolo arrived in an Italian suit with tons of energy and personality. We talked for a bit as he showed us the apartment which was small but in a building with a beautiful courtyard and just a couple of minutes away from where I lived when I spent the summer in Rome. After settling in, we hiked to the top of Gianicolo park to watch the sunset over the whole city of Rome. We had a later “Italian style” dinner the first night at a restaurant called Mama Eats which I had been to multiple times in the past because of its gluten free menu. Coincidentally, my study abroad roommate and friend was also named Alex and has Celiac disease so we found a bunch of great gluten free spots. Al was amazed that he could order anything off the entire menu and that for once we could share! We shared wine, bruschetta, meatballs and pizza and immediately noticed how sweet and flavorful the tomato sauce was - such a treat! After dinner we decided to walk by some of my favorite spots - Campo di Fiori, Piazza Navona and the Pantheon which were lively, even for October off season. We got gelato for the second time at a place with “150 flavors” which we later realized wasn’t very good and was just a tourist trap. Oh well!
Our first full day in Rome we wandered the main streets, walked by the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps, and attempted to do a free walking tour in the afternoon to brush up on our Roman history. The tour group ended up being around 25 people and the guide had a thick accent that we couldn’t understand so we decided to leave after a few minutes and try a different tour group the next day. On our way back we successfully found a gift for our workaway host, a cook book on Los Angeles foods and one of my favorite cooking movies, 100 Foot Journey, as this was one of our goals of the day as it was the next stop on the trip.
The following morning we fast-walked a mile to get to the meeting point for another walking tour. The guide spoke a little better English but we were the only people to show up! The guide said he “wasn’t feeling that well” and asked us if we could come back the next day. We couldn’t blame him since the tour wouldn’t be worth it for him with a tip from two cheap travelers. So we were 0/2 with our tours but luckily we were close by the colosseum so we quickly walked by it and took pictures as it was packed with tourists and people trying to sell you tours. As we were doing so, Al got an email confirming we had been booked for a third free walking tour so we hoped the third time was a charm and made our way to that meeting point. Luckily this tour worked out better and the guide was British so we could understand him and our group was capped at 15. The tour didn’t cover all of Rome but we did learn some interesting facts such as: there are over 600 churches in Rome, ancient Roman streets are very straight and you can see all the way down from one end to the next, Rome has eight ancient Egyptian obelisks (a tall, pointy, reddish tower with hieroglyphics on it) throughout the city which were actually taken from Egypt when it was conquered by the Romans. Egypt also provided much of the grains for Rome because the soil was fertile back then and not a desert. Al always wondered why the churches are so elaborately decorated. Our guide said that part of the reason was the Catholic Church’s way of combatting the rise of Protestantism. They built beautiful, expensive churches to put the citizens in awe. A form of propaganda to make people think something like “Wow, the church has the money and power to build these magnificent buildings then they must really be doing something right in God’s eye”.
Our walking tour ended by the Castel S’Angelo and the Vatican which we walked by but didn’t go in. We enjoyed another delicious meal out at a restaurant that had a full gluten free menu in addition to their regular menu. Italy in general has been very gluten free friendly but we found Rome especially to have a lot of options for Al. He got to eat bruschetta, a calzone, several pizzas and donuts. Interestingly, as we started to find common throughout Europe, we found a lot of gluten free food in pharmacies - which we stumbled upon by mistake. At first we didn’t think much of but then started to see this as a common trend in that maybe they think gluten free is sort of an ailment or disability. Grocery stores do have gluten free products but pharmacies seem to have more selection.
Our last full day we took it easy since we moved at such a fast pace the other two days and our legs were sore. The first half of the day we were tasked with finally shipping a box of our stuff home that we didn’t need and that was weighing us down. The first post office was closed so we made our way to another one which guided us to a store across the street where we had to package up our stuff. 45 Euros later we literally felt a weight lifted off of our shoulders but we are crossing our fingers we see the package again as Italian post doesn’t have the best reputation. We spent the afternoon at Villa Borghese park reading and relaxing, grabbed some dinner and since it was Friday, we pushed ourselves to go out and walk around my “old hood”, the streets of Trastevere which were full of people and music. We sat on the steps of Piazza Trilussa, one of my favorite things to do when I studied in Rome, drinking wine and beer and people watching. Those who know me, know how much I still talk about my summer abroad and what an amazing experience it was and what great friends I made. That whole summer the only thing I was missing was romance so I am so happy I got to experience that with Al this time around and show him all my favorite spots so he can now relate when I tell stories.
The next part of our trip is something we’ve been planning for several months - a workaway in Tuscany where we will be living with a host family for a few weeks and helping with cooking classes and other projects while our accommodation is free. We are super excited about this but nervous because we don’t know what to expect. Here’s hoping we are amazing Italian cooks in two weeks time!
On to Castagneto Carducci! Ciao!