One thing we didn't have an opportunity to do in Montecatini Terme was to take the funicular to the old town on top of the hill. It would have been nice to see if it was anywhere near as charming as Orvieto. Oh well, next time…
We head northeast toward the Adriatic coast with a first stop in Bologna. Actually that's not quite true. Just outside of Bologna. We stopped at a Auto Grill along the Autostrade Del I'talia (toll highway). We have seen many of there but the first that pulled into.
Complimentary facilities are located within along with fuel and a terrific deli-coffee-snack bar. Down stairs in the building is a fabulous grocery, pasta and meat shop, toys and candy. Tons of stuff available. It all looked to be high quality as is everything we have seen, with the possible exception of some goods from the street vendors.
As we travel along, you see many areas on the hillsides and small mountains where either current or former mining of marble and travertine takes place. The mining dates back to the earliest Roman times and many ancient quarries are still visible.
A little sight seeing in the old part of Bologna and off for a lunch of spaghetti bolognese. Bologna (the sandwich meat) was first made here as was the spaghetti bolognese.
It must be a characteristic of northern Italy, but we have noticed a lack of garlic in their cooking. It is possible too that we use far too much…. (Perhaps this means that we need to explore southern Italy and Sicily at some point, to see if our theory is correct!)
Bologna, outside of the old part where some of the old protective walls are still visible, must have been largely destroyed during the war, as almost all of the buildings are of post war architecture.
Italy seems very clean, at least virtually all of what we have seen of so far. Some doggie do in Roma was the only negative.
Our bus brought us to Mistre, just across the lagoon from Venezia (Venice). We will be here for the next 2 nights and have a full tour of Venice and surrounds, tomorrow.
There was an included dinner at the hotel tonight. It too was supposed to be spaghetti bolognese. Since we had a quite good one for lunch, we opted to wander the streets of Mistre in search of something smaller and more of the traditional fish and polenta based faire.
We did manage to find a place that fit our desires. Just down from our hotel is a plaza full of shops, restaurants and bars. After a short search along with a stop or two for refreshments, we found a nice little place and ordered small plates of Polenta with prawns, sardines and onion salad and a mozzarella, olive salad with greens. Nice.
It just started to sprinkle on our walk back to the hotel. Let's hope any rain is gone by morning…
No comments:
Post a Comment