Bologna.
Okay, so I've been back from Bologna since Tuesday. I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday as a "space cadet" - jetlag hit me pretty hard on the way back, though I didn't really feel it on the way there. But anyway! Bologna was a wonderful experience.
There are pictures and random bits and pieces behind the cut.
This is just on the Via Dell'Indipendenza, one of the main arteries in the centre of Bologna; my hotel was in a lane just to the right of the photo. Bologna's buildings all seemed to be made of sandstone, looked incredibly old (though, they're probably not), and full of wealth and power. Bologna, in the middle ages and during the Renaissance, was one of the centres of education and power in Europe, and so there's a lot of wealth and power in its buildings.
A road parallel to Via Dell'Indipendenza was called Via Malcontenti, which in Italian means something like "The Road of Disillusionment". I am immensely curious as to why, but my Italian is still largely limited to "Io non capisco L'Italiano" and thus I will never know why that street got that name. There was another road called Via Dell'Inferno, which in Italian is something like Road of Hell. I suspect Dante probably wrote some of the Inferno there, or some such. There's a tower with an inscription from Inferno in Bologna. That's pretty cool.
This is a bit of the Fountain of Neptune, some big fountain in the centre of the Piazza in the middle of Bologna, near the big basilica. It's pretty cool that, right next to the biggest basilica anywhere except Rome, there are nude chicks squirting water out of their boobs in a statue dedicated to some pagan god with a trident.
Inside the Basilica Di San Petronio. I'm not entirely sure this photo quite gets across the point of how huge that Basilica is. But it's really really huge.
Random little canal. I made friends with an English couple, one of whom was presenting work which was very similar to what I had initially planned to do for my PhD (but then decided I wasn't really interested in doing). They stayed in a hotel on the side of the canal (probably that red building to the right), and said it was weird to see people putting their washing out over the canal. What if the wind was strong and your clothes blew away in the canal?
So eventually I stopped sight-seeing because I had to go sit in hot, un-airconditioned rooms and listen to people talk about music cognition and perception. And in one case, about elephants. Who can beat a drum. In time. At 35 beats per minute. More accurately than humans can.
Of course, sometimes it's hard to concentrate on talks (especially impenetrable talks given by Finnish women, like the one when I took this photo) when there are awesome paintings on the walls. Thankfully I didn't give a talk, but instead had a poster, which I put up somewhere and stood by while people came past and talked to me (including the elephants guy, which was pretty awesome, seeing he's a big name in the field). That was outside, but in the shade. So everybody won.
On the last day we were there, a couple of Australians and myself were wandering around Bologna looking for interesting things to do. Of course, in Italy, nothing is open on Sunday. Including the big museum that we trekked halfway across Bologna for. Thankfully, nearby the big museum, a small monastery has an oratory room with paintings everywhere. Apparently this room was painted as a collective effort between a whole bunch of very famous Renaissance painters like Rafaello, but nobody knows who painted what now.
It often blew me away how so many historical things in Bologna were just kind of in poor repair. I guess they have so much history that it doesn't matter so much. But maybe there's a great story about why this sad guy in the corridor of that monastery is surrounded by holes. Maybe they were bullet holes from World War II (Bologna sustained some damage then, apparently)?
And also, on the last day, we climbed the Torre Asinelli. The Torre Asinelli is twice the size of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, it leans a little bit, and is 100 metres tall. It takes 498 steps to climb it, some of which were noticeably a bit wobbly. Though, after climbing the tower we felt better after having eaten a 5 course meal at the Conference Dinner the night before, which was held in an old palace (the Corte Isolani) which had what appeared to be death masks of what must have been old family heads on the walls. Nice view. But it kind of killed my legs a bit! On the plane trip on the way back, I was worried about deep vein thrombosis, cos my legs felt a bit funny, but then I realised that they felt funny because I had climbed a 100m tall tower.
Bologna had nothing but awesome food, too. Tagliatelli Con Ragu, mmm. Pizza Rustica, mmm.
tim.
There are pictures and random bits and pieces behind the cut.
This is just on the Via Dell'Indipendenza, one of the main arteries in the centre of Bologna; my hotel was in a lane just to the right of the photo. Bologna's buildings all seemed to be made of sandstone, looked incredibly old (though, they're probably not), and full of wealth and power. Bologna, in the middle ages and during the Renaissance, was one of the centres of education and power in Europe, and so there's a lot of wealth and power in its buildings.
A road parallel to Via Dell'Indipendenza was called Via Malcontenti, which in Italian means something like "The Road of Disillusionment". I am immensely curious as to why, but my Italian is still largely limited to "Io non capisco L'Italiano" and thus I will never know why that street got that name. There was another road called Via Dell'Inferno, which in Italian is something like Road of Hell. I suspect Dante probably wrote some of the Inferno there, or some such. There's a tower with an inscription from Inferno in Bologna. That's pretty cool.
This is a bit of the Fountain of Neptune, some big fountain in the centre of the Piazza in the middle of Bologna, near the big basilica. It's pretty cool that, right next to the biggest basilica anywhere except Rome, there are nude chicks squirting water out of their boobs in a statue dedicated to some pagan god with a trident.
Inside the Basilica Di San Petronio. I'm not entirely sure this photo quite gets across the point of how huge that Basilica is. But it's really really huge.
Random little canal. I made friends with an English couple, one of whom was presenting work which was very similar to what I had initially planned to do for my PhD (but then decided I wasn't really interested in doing). They stayed in a hotel on the side of the canal (probably that red building to the right), and said it was weird to see people putting their washing out over the canal. What if the wind was strong and your clothes blew away in the canal?
So eventually I stopped sight-seeing because I had to go sit in hot, un-airconditioned rooms and listen to people talk about music cognition and perception. And in one case, about elephants. Who can beat a drum. In time. At 35 beats per minute. More accurately than humans can.
Of course, sometimes it's hard to concentrate on talks (especially impenetrable talks given by Finnish women, like the one when I took this photo) when there are awesome paintings on the walls. Thankfully I didn't give a talk, but instead had a poster, which I put up somewhere and stood by while people came past and talked to me (including the elephants guy, which was pretty awesome, seeing he's a big name in the field). That was outside, but in the shade. So everybody won.
On the last day we were there, a couple of Australians and myself were wandering around Bologna looking for interesting things to do. Of course, in Italy, nothing is open on Sunday. Including the big museum that we trekked halfway across Bologna for. Thankfully, nearby the big museum, a small monastery has an oratory room with paintings everywhere. Apparently this room was painted as a collective effort between a whole bunch of very famous Renaissance painters like Rafaello, but nobody knows who painted what now.
It often blew me away how so many historical things in Bologna were just kind of in poor repair. I guess they have so much history that it doesn't matter so much. But maybe there's a great story about why this sad guy in the corridor of that monastery is surrounded by holes. Maybe they were bullet holes from World War II (Bologna sustained some damage then, apparently)?
And also, on the last day, we climbed the Torre Asinelli. The Torre Asinelli is twice the size of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, it leans a little bit, and is 100 metres tall. It takes 498 steps to climb it, some of which were noticeably a bit wobbly. Though, after climbing the tower we felt better after having eaten a 5 course meal at the Conference Dinner the night before, which was held in an old palace (the Corte Isolani) which had what appeared to be death masks of what must have been old family heads on the walls. Nice view. But it kind of killed my legs a bit! On the plane trip on the way back, I was worried about deep vein thrombosis, cos my legs felt a bit funny, but then I realised that they felt funny because I had climbed a 100m tall tower.
Bologna had nothing but awesome food, too. Tagliatelli Con Ragu, mmm. Pizza Rustica, mmm.
tim.