As I've hinted, Bologna is a city of porticos. There is one spectacular example which winds right out of town and wanders uphill to the basilica of San Luca. The reason for this is that there is a relic in the church - an icon painted by St Luke himself no less - which is carried out annually and processed down to the bottom of the hill and back up again. The frequent rain in Bologna persuaded them to build this cross-country portico - all two and a half miles of it all the way up to the basilica 1000 feet above ...
Our B&B landlady was impressed that we had walked all the way and not used the bus halfway, and even moreso when we told her we had enough energy left to go round the Brueghel exhibition (wonderful by the way) which is in Bologna at present, and was on our way back home - in fact in a palazzo a bit further along than the photo of Via Saragozza below ...
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| The wonderful Via Saragozza with a fine selection of paints and porticos |
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| Heading to the climb ... |
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| Hard to tell, but it is ascending ... |
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| Countryside around Bologna peeps through a cloister archway at the Santuaria della Beata Vergine di San Luca at the top |
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| Moses(?) tells it like it is |
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| More cloisters ... |
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| Just remembered to take the group photo ... |
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| ... before indulging in a spot of well-clad sunbathing |
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| Well - after a climb like that, you have to replenish your blood sugars somehow ... |
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| Barbara clearly excited at the prospect of crystallised fruit (see bowl in middle) as we window-shopped later |
superb place for food (think "sauce bolognese", "bologna sausage" -pronounced boloni, meaning mortadella-, ...) but also superb portici (53 km of them), and LUCIO DALLA! (famous singer and poet, recently died)
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