Bologna Thoughts

Our time in Bologna ended on Monday the 24th, sadly. I must say that I really enjoyed Bologna, and would urge anyone interested in seeing a real Italian city to go there. It might not have the historic sights of, say, a Rome (what city does?) but it's friendly and comfortable, and the food is amazing. This is real life Italy.

Other things we did there include the Archaeological Museum of Bologna (of course), and the Museum of Modern Art. The archaeological museum was good, if a little old. It lacked much English translations of things, but had a very nice collection of Egyptian and, particularly, Etruscan artifacts. They also had the largest collection of Greek pottery I have ever seen. There was literally room after room of it. This is because the Etruscans traded widely with the Greek colonies in Magna Graecia (Greater Greece, now known as southern Italy.) They also had a temporary exhibit of a reconstruction of the famous reclining couple coffin, perhaps the most famous piece of Etruscan art.

The original in the Etruscan Museum in Rome

The museum also had a short video presentation at the end, in a large room of the former palace (pretty much every museum in Italy is in a former palace.) I can't really describe it, except to say that it didn't have any words, but nonetheless told a story. It was the most amazing video I have ever seen at any museum. We were all very impressed with it.

The Museum of Modern Art was also very good. The collection was fairly small, but very well put together, with some very interesting pieces.

I'll throw up some more random pictures from Bologna.

The courtyard of the Archiginnasio of Bologna. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the rest.

These are some random ruins up near the train station. I couldn't find any more information about them, but based on the many I have seen and the brickwork, they are certainly Ancient Roman.