And We Call It Bella Notte: Just Keep Climbing

Climb #1 = On Monday afternoon, Allison, her friend Kourtney, and I climbed up one of the towers here in Bologna. Bologna used to have over 100 towers dotting the city (which wealthy families built to show prestige--the taller the tower, the wealthier the family--and to provide lookouts to protect the city). Now, many have been destroyed, but there are still a good number dotting the horizon when looking out over the city. There are 2 main ones in the center of Bologna called "le due torri" (the two towers). One is half destroyed, but for the other tower, people can pay 3 euros to climb up to the top for a great view (stairs only...they don't believe in elevators here unless they're really slow or really small). Needless to say, it was some good exercise (especially after a night of eating a whole pizza...see previous post).

Looking down the spiral staircase (this was only about halfway up).

Looking down at the half-destroyed tower from the top of the tower we climbed.

Kourtney, me, and Allison at the top! (If we look a little tired, we were.)

The view... che bella!

Climb #2 = On Wednesday, Allison, Kourtney, and I woke up early (6:30am), met on the south-west end of the city, and then walked up to San Luca--a church at the top of a hill just outside the defined "center" of the city. There's a road going up to the church (google maps says it takes only 4 minutes to drive), but we decided to get in our morning work-out and walk the portico path. Porticos are the arches over all the sidewalks here in Bologna (which provide shade when it's hot and shelter when it's raining!), and there's a string of them going up the hill to the church. From the base of this portico path, we made it to the top in about 25 minutes (google maps told us it would take 35 minutes...I guess we walked faster than the average person). It was such a gorgeous view, and we were glad we went early, so the light was beautiful and it wasn't too hot yet. There was a nice breeze at the top, and the three of us relaxed for a while on a wall and took in the view of the church and the surrounding hills.