Bologna Part 1

In the next few series of posts, I will discuss our recent trip to Italy.  During this trip we stayed for five nights in Bologna, and five nights in Venice.  We also made a day trip to Bolzano to see Otzi the Iceman.

We arrived on the afternoon of November 19th.  The weather was moderately cold, with highs in the 40s.  Not terrible, but not spring either.  We stayed at the Hotel Paradise, which I cannot recommend enough.  This was a great little hotel.  The room was clean and large (by Italy standards, mind you) and the free breakfast was great.  The location cannot be beat, in a quiet area but only a 10 minute walk from Piazza Maggiore, the main piazza in Bologna.

Hotel Paradise

Piazza Maggiore

Statue of Neptune

Basilica of San Petronio, the largest church in Bologna

A view of Neptune through the arch

I thought Bologna was a great city.  It is a real working city, with a large student population due to being the home of the oldest university in Europe, the University of Bologna, founded in 1088.  Bologna gets very few tourists from outside Italy, although it gets quite a few from Italy due to the quality of its food, said to be the best in the country.  Although its a large city (population approximately 400,000) it was easy to get around, and people were friendly.

Here are some more random pictures from Bologna.

Random tower in Bologna.  The city is famous for these and once had over 90.

The famous Two Towers of Bologna

View from the top of the large tower

I don't know what you did, but you made pink donkey very angry...

The view of the smaller of the two towers from the top of the larger

View of Bologna from the top of the large tower

 That's enough for now.  I'll post more from wonderful Bologna later.