Saturday 6 March 2010

RELUCTANT BLOGGER 14: Ciao Bologna


Today I leave Bologna and travel to Prague for Idomeneo rehearsals. I'm sad to be leaving Italy not least because, after spending 5 of the last 6 weeks here, I'm feeling at home and as if something has clicked with the language. 


It's not that I can speak it more fluently, or that I've learned heaps more vocabulary, just that it comes much quicker to mind and I don't panic when someone speaks back to me. It's a nice feeling, and I know that if I stayed for another few months my Italian would improve exponentially. But I have to go, and I don't know when I'll be back. It's frustrating.



After two cold and wet days, we had more beautiful warm Spring weather yesterday. I had forgot to mention Bologna's most famous feature in my last Blog; almost every street in the centre is lined on one or both sides by tall elegant colonnades, raised up out of the wet and dirt of the street. The colonnades keep you dry in Winter and cool in Summer and make shopping in the wet a much more pleasant experience.



I'll leave you with more pictures of Bologna, including some of the delicious sights in the narrow streets full of food shops – wish I could Blog the smells as well as the sights.


The Anatomical Lecture Theatre - the old pine still smells wonderfully like a sauna

A mural on the wall of the courtyard of the Spanish School
















No comments:

Post a Comment