June 2017–
Immediately following my 14 hours in Milan, I took a train to Bologna, Italy for the night. Arriving around 7pm and leaving at 6am the next morning was no joke when trying to see as much of the city in a few hours, while having done Milan in just as little of time. But challenge was accepted, and no regrets looking back.
This part of my trip was somewhat spur of the moment, a friend of mine that crashed a few of my stops, requested we leave Milan early and head to Bologna for a little to see his cousin from Mexico, that was studying English in Bologna. I figured why not, and we just went for it. The worst part was that I was 1. exhausted and 2. complicating my already purchased transportation to Rome. Other than that, again, why not? So we did.
First things first, we got off the train and looked for his cousin, which was was easy enough to find, since she just ran up to him immediately. Which was great news for me, since that meant we were one step closer to, food.
After dropping our stuff off at our airbnb for the night, we were off to explore the city. She showed us the roads, statues, signs and you guessed it, food of Bologna. Now disclaimer, with such a small window for exploration, we were only able to see Bologna through the eyes of a college student, not a professional tour guide. And since it was a last minute itinerary change, we didn’t have much time to plan much ourselves. So we just went with the flow for the night.
The places that were open after 9pm, were all extremely packed, yet everyone seemed happy and focused on their own conversations. No one really looked unhappy, which was contagious everywhere. We were able to get some tortolini and gelato, just after a few extra turns down to see a some of the major plazas. Let’s talk about the food for one quick second, it was out of this world. Never would I have imagined such enjoyment come from such simple dishes. Chances are though, it was because our tour guide already knew all the best places to hit up in town. Either way, the food from Bologna, could very well be the best food I’ve had in all of Italy, thus far. Here are some pictures of the food from my super short visit, but nonetheless, worth every bite, visit to Bologna.
Looking back though, it was nice to see the city at night, especially since Bologna welcomed us with extremely humid weather. I’m not sure if I would ever plan to do two cities in one day if I could help it, but again, no regrets in my book, yet. As for us, the next morning, we basically only had enough time to get up and rush to the train station, since we still didn’t have a ticket for our train to Rome, Italy!
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