Bologna (and the pastel haze)


Travelling to Bologna felt a bit like a fever dream. Descending over the city through the mountains to Italy's north, a mist lies over the city through which wonky terracotta-coloured brick towers poke. Our taxi driver drove us to the edge of the old city centre and told us he couldn't get any closer to our Airbnb by car. 

The buildings to the side of the street overhung the walkways with sheltered corridors like a cloister in a university. Each one had a unique pattered mosaic stone flooring. The facades of the buildings were all a time-washed yellow or orange. 


Bologna's geography: in the north of Italy valleyed within hills and mountains in a region where farming is a major industry, and the fact that cars and motorbikes clog up the narrowest of streets, result in a dense fog bear hugging the city. The air quality was incredibly poor, so much so that health advice was to limit too much exposure to the particulates by being outside for too long.

It doesn't make for much a trip when you start limiting time that you can breathe the air, like you are living in radioactive fall out or on the surface of Mars. 

We at least ate quite well in Bologna. particularly Oltre - a restaurant where food is served in darkness save for the light of your tables small lamp. We were the first to dine that evening and sat in near complete black - our food appearing out of nowhere. As more diners arrived, more lamps were turned on to start gently illuminating the room. The food took the freshness, fruitiness and simple flavouring of Italian food but made it subtle as opposed to hearty, which sounds like you don't get enough to eat, but that wasn't the case. 


Otherwise, Bologna was a strange place to visit. It attracts a lot of people and the surviving towers that once would have been everywhere in the city are impressive to see, even if there are likely very reasonable concerns regarding the chances of them crashing to the ground. 

We had an Airbnb in one of the narrow streets that lead off the central square and the streets are full of cheese shops, fish mongers and bars. They are busy with waddling crowds, the noise of groups of people drunkenly shouting over each other, and the thick smell of fish, fruit and car exhausts.  


Just as we couldn't really remember arriving, we couldn't remember leaving. Now it's hard to remember what month we travelled there in and we see photos of places we eat and struggle to remember even being there. That fog sat on our memories as much as our bodies. A city of sensory deprivation and the din of city life. 













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