taxi bus donkey

Despite the never ending heatwave I managed to haul my ass around this town several times. Assisting me in this endeavour was several centuries of sensible town planning.

The entire centro storico of bologna is made up of porticoed buildings which allows for plenty of shade and places to sit and also maufactures pleasing breezes which tickle the sweat on your brow and somehow trick you into thinking that 40 degrees C aint so bad after all.

In contrast to this is the town’s main square, piazza maggiore, a slab or concrete big enough to have a footy match in. (more…)

Caught the train from Venice to Bologna on Saturday morning thinking wow what a great little trip to bologna this is going to be… peaceful, i dont even have to put my pack up on the rack, calm, tranquil,.. i can even hear the birds in the trees as we pass them by… and as we approached mestre,.. i could spend a few seconds trying to recognise the strange noise which was getting louder it sounds like… hmm.. i dont know… oh yes i do.

It sounds like about 1,000 soccer fans making the trip to bologna for the last of the serie A games for the season, 1,000 hot and sweaty, smoking, horn blowing fans, most of which chose my carriage from which to abuse the anti smoking policy that the Italian train system had in place.. (more…)

Venice is not the city to head for if you are on your own and the type of person that enjoys the company of members of the opposite sex but is unable to acquire said company at the drop of a gondolier… however, it is a pretty place so for those out there who plan to spend some time here, learn from my finite but poignant wisdom (more…)

All i wanted to do was get lost in venice, it didn’t take long, in fact i am typing this right now thinking hey its dark out… how the hell am i going to get back to my 189 euro a night cupboard for a nap?

But what better city to get lost in (more…)

On saturday morning i packed my worldly possessions into the old fairydown and headed off for more adventures,.. i was kind of looking forward to leaving the sactuary that urbania had become, although there was still much to experience and we had put together a nice little posse the sands of time theory was always going to win and i whisked myself away while the stranieri slept in their uncomfotable beds.

The last time i was in Pesaro was the weekend before the course began, so i was familiar with the layout of the town, the bars near the station etc… and now i had a bit of italian wih me as well… the experience was much more appealing.. i bounced up to the ticket ounter at the station,.. booked my ticket for venice got snappy when the girl behind the counter told me i would have to go to another counter for a seat reservation… went to the bar and ordered coffee, mineral water and yeah why not a focaccia and i could sweat the girl had the gee he doesnt look italian look on her face. (more…)

Friday was the final day of my course in Urbania… whenver somebody has stopped long enough to listen i have been using the analogy of a brick wall to describe my grasp of the italian language… how so you ask? Well,.. having been around italians italianness and italianism for my entire existense i have picked up loads of vocabulary which i stored in a large pile,.. we shall call these … bricks… after some basic schooling i have managed to arrange these words into simple phrases, sentenses or what i like to call… a wall… or more correctly a garden edging… now this wall looksed ok,.. people would pass it thinking yeah theres that wall again, seen more like that one somewhere ah yeah just over there… as long as nobody leaned on it, played soccer against it, attempted to construct a swimming pool grandstand using it as support it basically worked as a wall… oh,.. water management was also right out…my wall had lots of bricks but nothing holding it together,…sheesh do i have to spell out everything for you people… (more…)

OK so i am going to owe a lot of favors for this trip, and the karma meter i have been talking about is now so far in the red that i understand a small committee has been formed some place to try and find the most efficient way that my debt can be repayed and the just order of the universe restored. (more…)

Tonight several of us dined at the local osteria la cuco, this is a tiny place big enough to fit bench tables along 2 side walls allowing just enough space for the waitress to serve the tables without bumping into you too often. (more…)

Every monday night the school organises a film screening, last week it was the elephant man which i watched just to listen to the dubbing … this week was the film inseperable with jeremy irons… this is a painful film made even more so by the painful and hard to follow dialogue (italiano of course), not really interested in talking about the film. (more…)

In rome, watched an impromptu latin jazz ensemble perform at a piazza along side the tiber in trastevere, they played for an hour on the steps of a fountain, there were at least 15 of them, just the old classics but each had their go at a solo which was special… and no hat being passed around either… they were probably famous.

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