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Europe, March-April 1998 Bologna, Italy Our next stop was to visit our friend Big G (Genevive) in Bologna. She was due to leave on another trip, so we had to quickly get there or miss her altogether. We were also trying to avoid a train workers strike in France and so, without much fanfare, we got the hell out of Barcelona. Of course, because we were suddenly in such a rush, we didn't think to provision ourselves properly and ended up paying the price... literally. We were on a super long train ride along the Riviera with a small bag of clementines, the leftover package of soda crackers and two half size 7ups and a small bottle of water. Soon most of the food and drink was gone with just a single packet of soda crackers remaining. I had saved a little water and dared Casey to eat the packet of soda crackers within a minute without anything to drink. (I had heard somewhere that it was a physical impossibility.) He considered the 12 small squares, and knowing he would fail, went for it anyway... He failed. At the third cracker, already he was struggling to chew and swallow. The remaining water was used to wash it all down. Luckily for us, the food service cart guy came by just in the nick of time to prevent utter starvation. The man would accept any currency, but we didn't have enough of any ONE European currency to pay for our two $5 sandwiches, two bottles of water and package of HITS. He then told me slyly that he accepted American dollars if we had any. With Casey nearly hysterical that I had held out our last remaining American cash on the brink of starvation, I paid the man. Changed trains in Nice to go to Bologna and got the last remaining standing-room-only tickets. We sat on the little fold-down seats in the corridor outside of the actual compartments. It was a LOOOONG ride. We started the trip in Barcelona at 7 a.m. and didn't get into Bologna until around 2 a.m. We spent a day and a half hanging out with Genevive, walking up under the world's longest portico to the church on the hill. Along the way, we passed by the secret door/window on a street wall. When we opened it, much to our surprise the road we were standing on was a bridge and the window opened onto a small canal. Many people don't know this, but there are TWO leaning towers of Bologna. These towers were built by the ruling families of Bologna to defend against invaders back in the day. Well, the lower one was closed because it was unsafe. (By the way, it must have been really unsafe to have been shut down for visitors. Most places we walked around would have been off limits due to liability issues in the U.S. I'm glad Europeans don't have such restrictions because of a sue-happy public.) But the higher tower was open and as always, we had to climb it. The inside was really interesting and divided into floors, maybe six in all. The staircase actually spiraled around each section along the walls. The only thing was, there were no rails along the staircases. And because the tower was divided into sections, you couldn't tell how far left you had to go to get to the top. It seemed like a never-ending staircase, but eventually we got to the top and the view was breath-taking. That night, we went to Big G's favorite pizza place. I got the spinach and Gorgonzola, Casey got the one with an egg on top and half stuffed with mozzarella bufala. The next day, we were off to Florence.
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