A project is in progress: walking days in Bologna.
Why should you have a walk with me? For the same reason that you should have a tour in Le Marche with me: you can see the places you explore with me also by yourselves, but with me you can take the deep meaning, their essence, their secret stories.
I don't want to seem boasty or overestimating my skills: I decided to promote this second project only after some informal tests. I now see that this project can work, as Le Marche project is working very well. I myself would like to explore another town with people who can help me to see what I cannot see with my only eyes.
The first walking days in Bologna will take place from December on. Differently from Le Marche, which give the best in the mid-season (April, May, June, September and October), Bologna is nice to see all year long, except July and part of August, when it's too hot. You can follow this blog to see how things are going.
Please spread the voice: December is near.
Visualizzazione post con etichetta work in progress. Mostra tutti i post
Visualizzazione post con etichetta work in progress. Mostra tutti i post
domenica 16 novembre 2008
giovedì 31 gennaio 2008
Touring in Bologna
It's a long time I've been thinking about a project.
As most of you know, I organize and run tours in Le Marche. All the people who came here have seen how I love this region, and how great were the experiences between Corinaldo, Ancona, Ascoli, Monte Conero, Urbino, Jesi and so on.
But still... there is another town, not in Le Marche, which deserves much more attention than the actual one.
We all know that the main tourist route - for those who come to Italy for the first time - is Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples. Personally, I'd skip Milan and choose Venice. Whatever the choice is, you have to pass through Bologna.
What is Bologna? Bologna is "Italy". Whereas Le Marche are all that you can find in Italy, resumed in one region (therefore "Italy in one region", as the claim of our Tourist Board says), Bologna is the thermometer of Italy: the social situation in Bologna is a synthesis of the society in Italy.
It's Italy's political lab: all the experiments about welfare, transportation, education and so on have their first try here. If they work, they will be replicated in national scale.
It's Europe's oldest university: the Alma Mater Studiorum dates back to the year 1089, and students are everywhere. If an Italian thinks about Bologna, he recalls culture, politics and... food!
Yes, because food is the third important thing of Bologna. Being in the middle of Italy, in a postion which can't be avoided by any traveller, crossroad between the Pianura Padana of Northern Italy and the Appennini to go south, close to Florence on the way to Rome, not far from Venice, Milan, Turin, Bologna has always been the melting pot of that crowd of small states that was Italy in the past.
No surprises, then, that every student and every traveller brought his home tradition to Bologna. Hence, the cuisine started to improve. The symbol of this cuisine is - not by chance - the Tortellino. This navel-shaped pasta stuffed with a lot of different things - so many that even every house has its own receipe for that - is by no means the essence of Bologna. Like its pasta, Bologna is the navel of Italy. And like the inside, Bologna is stuffed with lots of different people.
This is just to make you hungry of this town... the rest will come step by step...
As most of you know, I organize and run tours in Le Marche. All the people who came here have seen how I love this region, and how great were the experiences between Corinaldo, Ancona, Ascoli, Monte Conero, Urbino, Jesi and so on.
But still... there is another town, not in Le Marche, which deserves much more attention than the actual one.
We all know that the main tourist route - for those who come to Italy for the first time - is Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples. Personally, I'd skip Milan and choose Venice. Whatever the choice is, you have to pass through Bologna.
What is Bologna? Bologna is "Italy". Whereas Le Marche are all that you can find in Italy, resumed in one region (therefore "Italy in one region", as the claim of our Tourist Board says), Bologna is the thermometer of Italy: the social situation in Bologna is a synthesis of the society in Italy.
It's Italy's political lab: all the experiments about welfare, transportation, education and so on have their first try here. If they work, they will be replicated in national scale.
It's Europe's oldest university: the Alma Mater Studiorum dates back to the year 1089, and students are everywhere. If an Italian thinks about Bologna, he recalls culture, politics and... food!
Yes, because food is the third important thing of Bologna. Being in the middle of Italy, in a postion which can't be avoided by any traveller, crossroad between the Pianura Padana of Northern Italy and the Appennini to go south, close to Florence on the way to Rome, not far from Venice, Milan, Turin, Bologna has always been the melting pot of that crowd of small states that was Italy in the past.
No surprises, then, that every student and every traveller brought his home tradition to Bologna. Hence, the cuisine started to improve. The symbol of this cuisine is - not by chance - the Tortellino. This navel-shaped pasta stuffed with a lot of different things - so many that even every house has its own receipe for that - is by no means the essence of Bologna. Like its pasta, Bologna is the navel of Italy. And like the inside, Bologna is stuffed with lots of different people.
This is just to make you hungry of this town... the rest will come step by step...
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