2017 day16 (17th September Bologna)

A culture day today. We met our guide Daniella after breakfast and she took us around the historic buildings of the city and was a great source of information.

Starting in the Piazza Maggiore we saw the historic civil buildings dating from the 14th century. Bologna has been a Roman city, a city state, a Papal city, ruled by Napoleon and then capital of the region so the civic buildings reflect bits of all these periods.

Probably the most interesting building we visited was the University building. The university started in 1088 but the building - Archiginnasio Palace - was built in the 13th century. The interior walls and ceilings are covered with student crests and we also visited the amazing anatomy theatre where disections commenced in the 17th century using bodies of executed prisoners. There was also a huge law room so I've taken pictures for Geoff. This was the world's first faculty of law.
Bologna has numerous huge towers which were built by the wealthy in an on-going game of one-upmanship. Some are now leaning so they have more leaning towers than Pizza!
After Daniella left us we had a lunch break and then visited the medieval history museum which was absolutely fascinating. Hundreds of artifacts from 11th century plus and they had to throw us out at closing time - 6.30!
Another restaurante recommended by the hotel produced the usual terrific meal - tortellini and bolognase and beautiful cold meats to start.
Tomorrow we have the first of our walks in the mountains so hopefully we won't be too exhausted for blogging tomorrow  night