Bologna

Images: Porticos in Bologna, PJ on the steps to Piazza Maggiore; SL getting ready to buy prosciutto and olio d'olivia
For some reason, I think I was predisposed not to like Bologna. Perhaps it was an association with inexpensive sandwich meat. Perhaps I thought it was an industrial city, perhaps it was just because it is inland, not near the sea at all.
We arrived on Tuesday and the directions from Googlemaps were surprisingly good. My initial impressions did not nothing to dispel my preconceptions. Our hotel is actually quite nice, a pleasant surprise, but our first stroll in an attempt to find something to eat ended in us settling for a prepackaged sandwich at a roadside cafe while cars, trucks, buses and the ubiquitous Vespas (did you know that Vespa means wasp?) swirled by in a cloud of fumes and noise.
Dinner at the restaurant right next door to our hotel almost redeemed the whole day. We started with a parmeggian flan with asparagus, prosciutto, and a white wine/parmesan cheese sauce. If we hadn't already agreed to split each course, it would have been one of those, “You HAVE to taste this!” moments. This was followed by tri-coloured tagliatelle with truffled butter. I then had the pork with a white wine cream sauce, and oven baked potatoes, while SL had the eggplant parmesan.
The dinner sent us to bed with the promise of an exciting gastronomic day to come. Not so. Next day was not much better than the day before.
We set out on “The Route of Ham and Wine” - intent on seeing quaint villages, farms offering tours and samples of their products – Parma Ham, Parmigianno Regianno Cheese and Balsamic Vinegar.
Traffic jams, industrial stretches of road, and we finally got onto the Route, but we extremely disappointed. Maybe we have just been spoiled by all of the villages we have driven through, but we could not even find a place we wanted to stop to eat lunch. We found the Museo of Ham, but it was closed, and is only open to groups who have a reservation.
Back to the city, through construction and rain, to find all the restaurants closed, and we settle for a pizza and a glass of lukewarm beer served by a surly attendant at a pizzeria/bar on a busy street.
C'mon, it HAS to get better than this! So we start to strategically attack the night and the day.
We walk to the older city. Dinner at a jazz club where Joe Diorio, Mike Stern and Tal Farlow have played. Prosciutto. Parmigianno Regianno. Pate. Tagliatelle Bolognese to die for. A wonderful bottle of chilled white. Semi-freddo strawberry dessert. Twenty-year old Taylor port.
The next day, a hop on, hop off bus tour that helps us to understand the beauty of Bologna, home of the oldest University in the world. This is a city that venerates its teachers. The most ostentatious tombs, on the most public display, are those of its professors. O, to live in a world where schools have unlimited funding and the army has to hold bake sales......
Bologna was built with porticos running for many kilometres. The law stated that every building had to include a portico, and only the very rich or very powerful could apply for an exemption. Thus you have streets overarched with stone canopies supported by pillars that line the roadway creating mall-like walkways that go for blocks and blocks. It can be pouring rain, and you can walk Bologna without getting wet.
Architecture, museums, fountains, statues, parks – a lake! Bologna, forgive me. I will never take that sandwich meat for granted again.