Porta Galliera @ 12 o'clock: gate of the hostile fortress | post |
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17 Sept 2021 | Bologna> took a break from Italian 2 eat sushi @ Yoshi... not bad, but far off in the periphery, but gave us an excuse 2 check out hood far east (nothing 2 write home about) 18 Sept> switched Airbnbs... this 1's actually not an Airbnb but a sorta long-term «residence», smack in the center of town (across the street from the towers), not a top floor + smaller than the last place, but more functional + clean > it's right above the largest bookstore in Bologna, Feltrinelli, u essentially walk thru the bookstore in2 this «galeria» + navigate a series of convoluted passages (accessible by secret code) + stairwells > of course like our last place it also comes w/ it's own assortment of randum decorations like this big (6 ft) plastic piece of candy that will make a good backdrop for our bedder-½'s nutrition calls: > set off on our 1st porticoed perambulation, for gate #12, Porte Galliera > now our starting pt = ground zero, the middle of the clock face > stepped in2 the thick of Saturday morning foot traffic — they close off the downtown streets 2 cars on the weekends which is nice > zig-zagged thru every street + alley we could find, using Independenzia as our main thread, in wider arcs, trying to form a pie piece shape > not a lot of rhyme or reason 2 the streets + lots of overlap, just exploring every nook + cranny we cd > 8 @ Donatello (★★★★), classic old Bologna establishment, then continued north past the train stn in the Bolognina hood, a hip area 2 the north where most of the Africans + other ethnicities live, like Bologna's Bklyn or Pigneto > things are far more integrated here as compared to Rome, Africans actually have normal jobs, not selling knock-off handbags + running from cops + living under bridges like in Rome + u see lots of mixed couples + black + white + other shades hanging out together > wouldn't be a bad hood 2 live in but it's cut off from the rest of Bologna, but we'll likely be going up there 2 get things like cilantro or hot chilis > our bedder-½' «map my walk» thing kept stopping, so unfortunately our route got mapped out in 3 pieces (about 10 miles in all): > Parco della Montagnola is 2 the very north, build under Napoleon's orders + it shows, Baroque + gaudy + now in a state of neglect > it's just north of Piazza VIII Agosto which is like Bologna's Tiananmen square > on weekends it turns in2 a crappy street market selling cheap clothes > @ other times it serves as a place where ppl protest or are massacred (during WWII) > when we were visiting in 2012 it was full of tractors > as u get closer 2 the train station things get sketchier, riff-raff loitering + squares of foil w/ burnt heroin strewn about > popes or cardinals kept trying to build the above fortress but Bolognese residents kept destroying it (5 times) b/c of their dislike of the papacy... + finally we get to the Porta Galleria (across the street from the fortress ruins, thus sum call it gate of the hostile fortress) > it's 1 of the best preserved/restored of the ports > besides being the gateway to the north (leading to Ferrara), it also had an important function 2 line up + join the main water streams of Bologna alongside the road 2 the Po > u can see sum of the canal thru the break in the pipes essentially where a moat wd be > the train stn is the site of worst act of terrorism in Italian history, when in 1980 neo-Fascists bombed the station killing 85 + wounding many others > stopped @ mercato delle erbe on the way back to get fixing 4 fettuccine w/ porcini (fresh... tis the season!) + rewatched Victor Victoria (for maybe 5-6th time—★★★★★) + then rewatched Grosse Pointe Blank (★★★), not as good as we remembered but still classic Cusack |
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# 926 <(current)> 928 > Tributary #14: «Red Nile» | ||
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