A Day Trip to Bologna from Milan, and the Nutelleria

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What a Monday! Caught between two big-activity days for me – the Super Bowl is usually one of my favorite events of the year, even before I started working in advertising…because I like the ads! By now being out of the country doesn’t stop my enjoyment – the ads are already on YouTube or debut directly there anyway. You can skip the game entirely!

And tomorrow is World Nutella Day! Are you ready? Remember to send us your information when you’ve posted your contribution – send an email to nutelladay **at** nutelladay **dot** com with your post URL, and a 100x100pixel picture if applicable.

We spent the weekend visiting friends in Bologna. My first and last visit to Bologna was in 1999, while I was studying abroad here. While I enjoyed my trip, I’d never been back. I always seemed to have another trip pulling me in a different direction. But I’ve definitely been missing out. Bologna is the type of city that makes you feel small but doesn’t alienate you from its secrets.

I didn’t post all my pictures here – if you’d like to see more pictures of Bologna, view my Bologna photoset on Flickr.

The main piazza, Piazza Maggiore, has a way of overwhelming you and welcoming you at the same time with its large spaces that are vertically dominated. You can tell it’s a university town – there is an abundance of youth that I haven’t seen in any other Italian city, and it reminded me quite a bit of San Francisco. Like SF, almost every person you pass has their own style and vibe different from the next.

San Petronio, the basilica in the middle of Piazza Maggiore, technically has an unfinished facade, but I like the texture. The center has such majestic buildings concentrated all together with small roads radiating out from the main piazza in every direction.

Now I’ve seen at least five leaning towers in the world – Pisa, Venice (2), and these two, Asinelli and Garisenda.

I love the “uniform” of men at this age in Italy. You must have a hat, probably a fedora, and your trusty jacket to walk with a friend or sit on a bench and watch life go by. You can see that it’s still considered quite warm for early February as their jackets are open.

The covered walkways of Bologna are one of its most unique and useful features of the city. We weren’t worried about rain with most of the streets being covered. Bologna also has so many buildings and palazzi in various shades of red that it gives off a warm feeling, and when the sun came out on Sunday, we sat in Piazza Santo Stefano and soaked up the rays.

Ironically, there’s a Nutelleria in Bologna – a cafe dedicated to Nutella and serves only things with Nutella – crepes, waffles, corn flakes, filled donuts! It was closed when we went by, which is fine with me since in these days I’ve been overdosing a bit and was glad for the break from Nutella.

Nutelleria – Via Independenza, 45 – Bologna

We’ll be back, Bologna.