By:  Elizabeth

We arrived in Bologna by train from Padua, it just took an hour. Bologna is our jumping off point for our next country tomorrow. That will bring us to seven! Not many tourist have the city of Bologna on their Italy bucket list, but we were familiar with it from watching Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy Series. If you’re into good food, have plans to visit Italy and looking are for inspiration, I’d recommend the series and Bologna.

Bologna is Italy’s ‘The Fat One’ (La Grassa) and is also known as the food capital of Italy. Who knew? We discovered this last night when we had one of the best food experiences we’ve had so far. Cheese gelato? Yummy! Prosciutto di Parma (we call it ham) is King here in Bologna. I know you thought it was bologna, right? I’ve never seen so many rear haunches of pig hanging in butcher’s windows in my life. And then there is the myriad number of ways it’s cured, cut and served. Michael had pig cheeks for dinner and I had the Osso Buco with bone marrow in a saffron sauce — we cooed the whole time.

Thankfully, prior to dinner we had taken the tourist train up to the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca and walked down the infamous Portico, a 3.8 km monumental roofed arcade (Portico di San Luca) consisting of 666 arches. It is the longest continuous covered walkway in the world. Built from 1674–1793, it was meant to protect the icon (Madonna) as she was paraded up the hill. A yearly procession from the Cathedral of San Pietro in the center of Bologna to the Sanctuary travels along this path. Our Apple health tracking app let us know we walked seven miles and gave us license to stuff ourselves.

I’m stuffed . . . again!

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