>>BOLOGNA

typical bolognese tower
fountain at city center
bustling side street



Bologna! a wonderful city to end our journey on, after we dropped our bags off at the nicest hotel I've ever seen, 4 stars I think, we quickly headed on a guided tour of the avant garde town of Bologna. As a town that prides itself on food, it can be a little expensive to eat-however for lunch on the first day we ate at a cafeteria style diner to sample some amazing Bolognese treats. We learned that at one time Bologna contained 200 family towers like the one above. Left with only 20, Bologna used the brick for fortifications and for new housing developments. Also, during the occupation by Napolean the town tricked the French into beliveing that their Pope statue was really a patron saint- a move that preserved an amazing statue at a time when thousands of Pope monuments were destroyed. Also-the fountain above demnostrates the dominion of the pope, four mermaids representing the four major religious rivers of the world (gangese,jordan,nile, tigris) are capped bye a figure who is both lovingly ruling and also forcefully controlling. One more fact on Bologna, it has the largest University in Europe, 135,000 students, making it a very vibrant young town. The next day on the third we went to Parma and Modena.
Ferrari Museum

Risotto
Ron drinking some wine

Another early start landed us in Modena, on a private bus, to witness first hand the history of Ferrari. The museum allowed us to view architecture as product-as well as modes of manufacturing that are sophisticated yet not used in architecture. From Modena we took our bus to Parma(the hills there of) to have a wine tasting and lunch. By far one of the most interesting parts of the trip. We enjoyed the beautiful views, great food, and learned the process for making the wine. Above you can see the food as well as my professor from sophomore year, Ron Rael. From the vineyard lunch we went to the town of Parma and saw a few churches then returned to Bologna for the last night.