instant italy!
13 april 2000

hallo iedereen {hello everyone},

are you impressed with my dutch? classes are speeding along, blasting through posessive pronouns and the imperfect tense. i'm very excited by this because i've never gotten beyond present tense in spanish. of course, it takes me at least 3 minutes to get a sentence out but oh well, i'm trying. just signed up for the next course.

two weeks ago, i managed to have yet another birthday, you do the math. we wanted to do something fun and special and were planning to go to barcelona for a three day weekend. not gonna happen. after a disillusioning trip to the travel agent {customer service is a different concept in holland}, we bagged the idea. it would have cost a small fortune. enter plan b. klm, royal dutch airlines has a daily offer called "click and go". everyday at 1pm, they post some cheap fares to four or five destinations in europe. you guessed it, you have to go the next day. this is something i've never done, but was ready to take the plunge.

we started checking everyday to get an idea of what they were offering and some wonderful choices came up. rome, athens, stockholm, milan, paris, turin, helsinki, sandjifjord - had to look that one up; it's in norway, {no way, too cold}. we were anticipating rome and even bought some travel books in order to be prepared. on the appointed day, rome did not appear, however bologna did. italy, here we come. our book sounded positive so we booked our tickets.

kudos to klm. when we got to the ticket counter, it came up that it was my birthday and we had a nice chat with the ticket agent. lo and behold, while inflight, the lovely flight attendant presented me with a birthday package that included 2 small bottles of champagne, peanuts{airline style}, and some airline bottles of cognac. make my day! i was really puzzled as to how she knew, apparently the ticket agent passed on the info and it was on her passenger list. dun dun dun dun, moral of the story, beware of blabby ticket agents! it was a very nice gesture and i felt rather special.

now, just because the plane tickets were reasonable, don't be fooled. no rooms were available as there was a huge trade fair going on and the only thing we could get for friday night was the sheraton. a little pricey and not anywhere near where we wanted to be, but what choice did we have? we did enjoy the room but motored out to get to where the action was the next morning {well, noon, we're not early risers}. hopped a cab to the center of town, the piazza maggiore. by the way, everytime i tried to say anything in italian, such as "si" or no, it came out dutch. not kidding and definitely embarassing.

the first and most important thing i have to say about bologna is that it must be the best kept secret of italy. you never hear about it, but it is very beautiful, with its hundreds of old porticos and lack of tourists. we absolutely loved it and gary assured me that every city in italy has this much charm with so much visual and historic interest. bologna really has such an ancient appearance and on saturday we spent a long time just wandering the streets and looking at the buildings. some look like they might crumble to the ground any moment. rooftop gardens were everywhere and i've never seen more interesting doors, all of them different with very elaborate knobs. ok, you wouldn't think doorknobs would be something to remember but they were quite unique and have obviously captured my attention.

i also decided that bologna is a city of balconies. i nicknamed it the romeo and juliet city. we visited a church that had more balconies than marys. i might be exagerrating. finally, the backpacks were getting really heavy so we had to find a room. i was losing faith, we couldn't find anything at first {the book fair was still happening}, but soon we scored a wonderful room, even more expensive than the sheraton and a lot more charming. hotel people sometimes lie when they tell you that it's a double bed; there's usually a crack as a result of two beds being pushed together. maybe they really think that is a "matrimonial" bed, i just don't know.

out and about again, we happened to be at a church that was about to host an organ concert. too bad, he hacked up bach among other less well known composers. it was a musical day. next we found ourselves in a music conservatory for a chamber concert. that wasn't so hot either, but the room was gorgeous. who cares, we were in italy and that was enough. went out for a late dinner and since then i probably can't eat pasta unless i'm in italy. it's a whole different thing. bologna is very famous for its food and i found it special in its simplicity, not drowning in the usual heavy sauces we've come to expect with italian food. oh, i almost forgot, that afternoon we had the best pizza in the world. most restaurants close for siesta between 3 and 7:30, just when we're usually ready for lunch. finding that pizza joint was great and we went back a second time for a snack.

sunday was warm and sunny, a rarity in europe. being the ambitious travellers, we climbed a huge tower that had a million steps. the old city of bologna had tons of these towers and only two remain. not sure what the purpose was, perhaps to fortify the city. the view was magnificent at the top, well worth the climb. no altitude! the entire city was visible with its characteristic red rooftops. breathtaking, to say the least.

on to the morandi museum, housed in a former palace. morandi was a contemporary artist and it was fun to contrast 20th century art with the frescoes of long ago. they are exquisite and we saw many rooms of the palace as it was furnished in the past, sorry, i forget which century it was. it is incredible to see 2 dimensional paintings that look 3 dimensional. it really looks like that and there was one room that had flower pots that looked like they were about to fall on your head!! gary said these were as good as any as he had seen in florence! they were stunning and since i had never seen anything like this, i was in awe. we were also amused by the way the security people were following us around and hovering and even directing which room to see next. maybe they thought we had a "thomas crown affair" kind of air about us. we also made a quick pass through the archeological museum; nice but, honestly i can only look at so many broken pots. the building itself was worth a picture though.

i was now in a scampi mood and we had dinner at a great little restaurant where we met a lovely english couple and chatted quite a bit. they spoke our language, well sort of. we cracked up when we realized that everyone around us was english speaking as opposed to the other dining room downstairs, full of italians, the room where the real action was. i guess gary's blond spiky hair gave it away. again, the food was unpretentious and delicious. after dinner, we strolled. seemed like the thing to do.

so much for two days of sunshine. next day, monday, we jumped on a bus to get to the other side of town where we would be making a pilgrimage through 666 porticos leading to a shrine of some sort. we weren't exactly sure what to expect at the top but were determined to take this beautiful walk. it was foggy and misty and perfect walking weather. i'm not sure of the history of who the original pilgrims were because the info was in italian but it was quite the trek. at the top was the most adorned church i've ever seen in my life. the altar was marble with gold throughout and workers were polishing the gates that were actually part of the altar. the detail was elaborate, baroque to the nines! wow, no words or camera can really capture such display.

going down was hard on the knees, but what isn't these days? we walked the whole way back, stopping for one last italian lunch before having to leave that charming country. my hair was really frizzed out by all that mist and humidity! fortunately, it's only a 2 hour flight from a'dam and we intend to return often. there were other towns closeby, such as florence, but we were so fascinated with bologna, we didn't venture out. i now have a burning desire to visit tuscany, among other parts of italy. it's 5 star country as far as i can tell!

back in a'dam, it's freezing still but the bulbfields are happening and we did a very touristy thing and went to the keukenhof gardens. millions of bulbs are in bloom and the sun shone the day we went, a bonus. the gardens are outside of the city so we got to see a bit of the countryside and along the way,from the train, we could see hundreds of spring flowers in brightly colored rows. i just wish the weather was a little different than it was in january. really, is that asking too much? i'm holding out for the beach ,which will be our next trip in two weeks. portugal and southern spain, stay tuned......

well, my friends, best to everyone and happy easter, passover, or whatever else applies.

with love, and ciao,

deb