Busy in Bologna

Bologna is an old university town.  I read that of the major medieval universities, Oxford was renowned for science, Paris was known for theology, and Bologna was known for law.  Nowadays, it's also known for food as the biggest town in Emilia-Romana.

Cheese display at Eataly

We headed into Bologna on a 90 degree day and ended up at Eataly, the food emporium, for lunch.  Not the most atmospheric, but their air-conditioning was excellent!  We had the local specialities - tagliatelle alla bolognese for Narisa (it's her favorite pasta and I told her she really needed to have it when it was invented, in Bologna!), tortellini in Brodo (small tortellini served in soup), some local fish and a meat patty that was prepared to Slow Food standards.

This part of Italy is the cradle of the Slow Food movement - the precursor to the locavore movement in California.  More on that at a later restaurant...

The Trabosh, Morris and McAdams kids

Bologna was surprisingly untouristy.  We wandered around the mercato di mezzo in Bologna and into the old San Petronio cathedral, which was enormous.  The interesting thing about Bologna is that almost everything was built in red brick but not faced in marble like other Italian cities.  So the Bolognese are reputed to be very straight forward without a lot of pretense - plus a hotbed of leftist politics.

Gelato bars - the blood orange was yummy

After a nice wander, a little shopping and the requisite gelato, we called it a day.