Day 87 - Bologna - Zadar, Croatia

Wednesday, September 26, 2018.

Today we got up earlier than yesterday. Daniel and Sunshine did some homework before breakfast. We got ready to leave Modena today. We had a small chat with Eva and then by 11:00am we said our goodbyes. We had a very good time with them. Eva looks the same as I remembered her. She is always calm and willing to help. This time we got to know her son Xe, who is a brilliant guy with a bright mind. It reminded me of my good all days in college when we had philosophical discussions with my friends. Ahhh, to be young again!

We walked to the train station with our suitcases, which wasn’t bad. We left Modena on the 12:30 train. We had plans to leave the suitcases at the train station but it was expensive and even if Gregory saw on the website said it would cost us $3.50 per bag, guess what? It’s Italy and now they were asking 6 euros for the first 5 hours. I was a little upset at Gregory who said that he would find something better. In my head, I knew we had limited time in Bologna and wanted to get going, plus the kids were hungry. Ten minutes later, Gregory came back with a big smile and said that we could leave our luggage in the bus station where we had to be later, anyway. I have to hand it to Gregory, he always finds better deals. It’s just a matter of patience and research. Something that I need to learn.

We crossed the street, pulling our suitcases, and made it to the bus station, which was next to a Roman city wall. Those Romans were everywhere! After leaving our suitcases, we went downtown looking for a place to eat. If it was for me, I would just walk around and find a place but Gregory found a nice place where the locals eat, with a good quality/price ratio called Pan Fragante. It was a tiny locale with all homemade food. The dishes cost 7 euros and you could choose from homemade pasta, lasagna, eggplant, meatballs and more. We sat and had our last Italian meal! Our mood changed and now we were really ready to explore the historical center of Bologna.

We arrived in Piazza del Nettuno which is attached to the Piazza Maggiore. It looked smaller than I remembered. Maybe because the piazza was covered with white tents from a fair that was going on. We saw the Palazzo del Re Enzo in front of the big Neptune fountain.

We also visited the Basilica of San Petronio which is large but is unfinished and looks like it was going to be even larger. Gregory told us that the reason it is unfinished is that the Vatican cut off the building funds when the pope found out that this church was going to be larger than St. Peter’s in Rome. The interior is big and like Daniel said, “they all look the same.” Maybe we are just tired of seeing so many churches, cathedrals, duomos, frescos, paintings… We sat there and rested for a while. After that, we visited the beautiful library called l’Archiginnasio. I went upstairs because I was looking for a bathroom, but instead found a fascinating exposition of medieval tarot cards. I rushed because everyone was waiting for me downstairs. And no, there was no bathroom here!

We passed the archeological museum, which looked super fun and was inexpensive but we didn’t have time or (more likely) no one wanted to go in, plus I really needed to go to the bathroom!!! We found a cool cafe called RosaRose. It was filled with chandeliers and the reddish walls gave a nice warm atmosphere. I ordered cappuccio for everyone and ran to the restroom. Gregory had a glass of wine and we all enjoyed the free Wifi.

After an hour, we walked to the medieval Piazza della Mercanzia and two of the tallest medieval towers, Garisenda and Asinelli. These are so famous, they are mentioned in Dante’s Inferno! One of them is tilted precariously and we were a little worried to be standing underneath it, but Daniel said, “it’s been here this long, I don’t think it’ll fall today.” In the souvenir store, I saw a picture of how Bologna looked in Dante’s time and it was very impressive to see all those towers that rich people built just to show how much money they had. Nowadays, they just buy expensive cars, nothing that will last hundreds of years. By now, it was time to find a grocery store to buy food for the bus and head to the station. We walked through a nice park, took some pictures, and when we were almost arriving at the bus station, Sunshine said, “Oh no, my guitar!”

“What about it?” I asked. She had left it on the train from Modena. That poor guitar that we got In Barcelona, that broke in the train to Marseille, that we tried to get repaired in Nice, then in Florence, and now forgotten in the train… Goodbye, guitar. I thought Gregory was going to get mad but he didn’t. Mental note: complain to Lanai for poor quality and for never responding to our letter. We made it to the bus station at 6:30pm, picked up our luggage, which by the way, the lady said that we should have paid 100 euros for storage because they were so heavy that she couldn’t put them away. We didn’t know if she was joking or not, but in any case, we pretended that we didn’t understand her and left.

The bus was 15 minutes late and the weather had changed from warm to cold. Luckily, I had packed my jacket and got it out. We hopped on the bus and I watched a movie with Sunshine, a chick flick that turned out to be a teen flick. Ugh. I tried to sleep on the bus but it was brutal -- we made several stops (Padua, 2 in Venice, Trieste and Rijeka), and the driver took the curvy roads like he was driving a sports car. On top of that, I lent my pillow and sleeping mask to Daniel. We all mostly drowsed when we could for the 10-hour ride to Zadar.