We arrived in Bologna and had to park a few kilometres from our apartment. The traffic in the historical centre is restricted to taxis and buses (and motorbikes apparently). So we dragged our suitcases with our backpacks on our backs to our AirBNB for the next 3 nights.

Bologna is a beautiful city with arched porticos covering most of the sidewalks across the city. They give shelter from the rain and snow and apparently were built to allow more accommodation to be built over them. The architectural styles vary from medieval to baroque to 19th century.

When we arrived, our apartment was right next to the most popular tourist attraction in Bologna: The Two Towers. Not the ones from Lord of the Rings, but the ones built in 1109 in the main square. Apparently the nobles in Bologna used to build towers to project their wealth and power. There were 200 of them at one time across the city, but only 20 left now. Two of them are right next to each other. One is 97m tall and the other 40m. It used to be 60m, but began to lean badly and had to be cut shorter. The lean now is so pronounced it looks like this tower will fall over at any moment. I was a bit hesitant to walk behind it.

We enjoyed a cup of coffee in the square while we waited for the call from Ian and Carmel. We weren't there for long before Carmel contacted us to say they were coming into the train station from Cinque Terre. I raced down to meet them so that we could pick up their bags from the car and come to the apartment. It was great to see them again and hear about their adventures in Cinque Terre.

That night we had to go out for dinner to try the local speciality: Spaghetti Bolognese! We found out quickly that spaghetti Bolognese is an American invention. The specialty in Bologna is actually tagliatelle with ragu. This is similar to spag bol, only much, much better. We found a good restaurant called Trattoria Gianna and went in there to get a table. There was a family in front of us with a small child and they were turned away with the excuse that the restaurant was fully booked. I decided to reserve a table for another night, but the waitress actually said that they could seat us right away. Obviously they didn't want kids in their restaurant. The place was very full though and the waiting staff were buzzing around like blowflies in a bottle. It took a while to get served, but once we did Lidia ordered the tagliatelle ragu and Carmel and I had the gnocchi Bolognese. Just delicious.

The next morning we went on a walking food tour of Bologna. Our guide was Matthia and he was a lovely guy. He took us to his favourite café for a coffee and croissant and then we walked all around Bologna tasting delicious local foods. We also checked out the main sights, including Piazza Nettuna (Neptune), which has a famous statue of Neptune in the centre of it. During construction of the statue, the local bishop asked the sculptor to make the penis smaller. The sculptor complied, but built the statue in a way that when you stand behind it, Neptune's left hand looks like an erect penis. Very clever. The triton that Neptune holds is used as the logo for Maserati, whose factory is nearby.

Next to Piazza Nettuna was Piazza Maggiore, the main square of the city, which is overseen by the enormous cathedral. The church is unfinished because during it's construction the Vatican found out that it was going to be bigger than St Peters and so ordered construction to cease. As a result the wings on each side are cut off halfway and the façade was never completed, the marble only reaching halfway up.

While we were walking out of the piazza Ian (aka Greg) asked Matthia whether he had heard of George Pell. The girls were so embarrassed. Carmel was waving to a bus driver to run over Ian to make him stop talking. Interestingly though, Matthia had never heard of George Pell and didn't know anything about him or the scandal. Looks like the Vatican was able to sweep that one under the carpet in Italy.

Matthia then took us to a local pasta factory where the workers all make the pasta by hand every day. The specialty in Bologna is tortellini and tortelloni (big tortellini) and the workers were churning them out ten to the dozen. Incredible to watch. After this we went to a Trattoria to sample the tortellini. They serve it in a chicken broth here and it was great.

During our tour, Matthia mentioned that the Mille Miglia race was on at the moment and that the cars were due to arrive in Bologna that night. This race is famous and started as a 1,000 mile car race in 1927. It ran until 1957. Now it is a showcase of vintage cars. Only cars registered to the original race can enter, so the cars are all from 1957 and earlier.

That afternoon Carmel, Ian and I decided to climb the Asinelli tower. This is the tallest tower in Bologna, one of the two towers outside our apartment. There were 498 steps in the tower. Carmel was feeling a little claustrophobic and decided to stop halfway. Ian and I went up to the top and took some spectacular photos of the terracotta roofs of Bologna and the green hills surrounding the city.

At 9:00 we went down to Piazza Maggiore to check out the Mille Miglia. There were vintage Mercedes, Maseratis, Alfa Romeos, Ferraris, Porches, etc. all driving into the Piazza. The whole place was packed with spectators.

The next day we decided to walk up the hill to the church known as Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca. To get to the church you can walk the whole way under a portico that was built so that they could carry the statue of Madonna down from the church every year in a procession without getting it wet. The portico is the longest in the world, stretching for 7.5 kilometres, was built in 1433 and is very steep, containing 666 archways. By the time we had walked up to the church we were exhausted. The trip back down was much easier. We were lucky that the whole thing is covered because it rained cats and dogs the whole day.

On the way back we stopped at some fresh food stores and bought some fresh veges and stuffed zucchini to cook up for lunch.

That afternoon Ian and I went to check out a music museum where a monk had collected musical instruments, music and portraits of famous composers for centuries. We saw some cool old instruments, as well as original portraits of Mozart, Verdi, Vivaldi and many more. There was even an original manuscript in Mozart's own hand.

After we left the museum we went to a magnificent Pasticceria where we bought a few different types of cakes to take back to the girls.