Bologna (work) Days - 2022 Spring Forward While We Can - CycleBlaze

March 11, 2022 to March 17, 2022

Bologna (work) Days

Not sure if the site rules permit it but we are accumulating distance, just not on bikes. (Mileage reported is on bike but to/from train stations.) Our exploring takes us out for 20 km walks daily. 

Bologna is one of the four designated Italian cities for refugees from the invasion. Each day it becomes more apparent. A week ago we saw a few people who might have been refugees on a platform and now it is a steady stream. 

Lots of movement from the train station to the tents below. Strollers with the suitcase inside and child in someone’s arms. Everyone seems calm, exhausted, or both. Cell phones are continually in use and this has got to help with the finding of services, rooms, and each other. 

Refugee processing tent near train station. Went from the tent on the right in morning and by afternoon the one on the left had been put up.
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Full inside but line outside is getting shorter compared to the day before. Volunteers are outside with clipboards and we watch as teens in line step out to ask questions (presumably) and then return to family groups. The role of children as translators is so important.
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We are trading work days with travel days. Still great to work here and be able to stroll up to San Luca or around the Piazza. 

Promising barber shop.
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Scott AndersonMachete! Must be a chain. I got clipped in a Machete a few years back in Torino.
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2 years ago

We will try to detail travel days separately (Venice, Florence, Ravenna). Nice to find that our travel trains are still a good place to think.

Fish of every stripe on Vie Drapperie, gourmet lane. In regular grocery stores we see more fish fingers.
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For the clock collection. Piazza Maggiore in Bologna.
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From San Luca. Giro d’Italia has a stage end here at the end of the big climb.
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Via Malcontenti — home of Oscar the Grouch?
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Martha FrommeltI love your eye. Seeing what you notice. Wondering what you are wondering about..... towers.....fish... and... and why in the world would you want to live on a street with this name...
Thanks for the updates.
Martha
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2 years ago
Bologna has a thing for tower building. Many models show the city with them every 0.5 km. Still trying to understand why as they are not obviously for defensive positions, power, or storage.
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Keith AdamsI have no idea if these towers are for the same purpose, but I've seen similar structures locally. The ones in this area are "shot towers", so named because they were used to produce the round pellets that go in shotgun shells.

Molten metal (lead, presumably) is hauled to the top and poured through what is basically a sieve; it flows through the holes and forms droplets that are shaped into the desired spherical form by air friction as they fall. At the bottom are water-filled tubs that collect and cool the pellets.
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2 years ago
Keith AdamsTo Keith AdamsNow I've exposed my ignorance... they are defensive structures, according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towers_of_Bologna)

Quoting the article, in part:

"Between the 12th and the 13th century, Bologna was a city full of towers. Almost all the towers were tall (the highest being 97m), defensive stone towers. Besides the towers, there are still some fortified gateways (torresotti) that correspond to the gates of the 12th-century city wall (Mura dei torresotti or Cerchia dei Mille), which itself has been almost completely destroyed.

The reasons for the construction of so many towers are not clear. One hypothesis is that the richest families used them for offensive/defensive purposes during the period of the Investiture Controversy."
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2 years ago
Bologna from Parco di San Michele — in less than 10 minutes from our rental (near Via Malmolo) we are up here.
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Other side of Parco di San Michele.
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Today's ride: 20 km (12 miles)
Total: 150 km (93 miles)

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Scott AndersonI love Bologna, its parks and arcades. We ended out tour here last fall when Covid booted us out of Europe again. I love the city more now knowing it’s a refugee processing center.

And now that you’ve prompted me to look for it, I see that Barcelona is one of Spain’s four centers also.
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2 years ago
Zelda MekWith 3 million people on the move right now it will be a challenge for everyone. Very glad to see many countries opening centers and providing support.
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2 years ago