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Bologna Food Tour and Aceto Balsamico Tour
We went on a food tour with Mattia at Delicious Bologna. (We found him through a Viator search but this is his own website). If you ever go to Bologna, spend a half-day with Mattia, you get to sample some of Bologna’s best food and it’s also a good orientation to the city center and the history of Bologna.
We saw hand-made tortellini at a pasta workshop, (San Francisco folks: this is where the owner of Flour + Water trained), walked through the central produce market, snacked on tigelle, sampled the local salumi (including mortadella, a pale imitation of which goes by the name “bologna” in the cold-cuts section) and parmiggiano with aceto balsamico. Finally we had a nice lunch of the most typical Bolognese dishes: tagliatelle al ragù which is not the same as “bolognese sauce”; tortellini in brodo (pictured), and lasagne made with spinach in the dough. Finally some gelato, of course.
We also went to Acetaia Giusti, one of the oldest and most famous producers of balsamic vinegar. It was fascinating to see the way vinegar is made on the free tour, which includes plenty of promotion of why the Giusti family was absolutely essential to the idea of balsamic vinegar. I recognize a lot of the process details from winemaking and barrel-aging of whisky or beer. But there’s an interesting inversion, in the conditions the vinegar is subjected to during. Barrels are left with an opening to the air to allow a little evaporation. They are traditionally stored in the attic, where the temperatures range from 35 in the winter to 110 in the summer, as if the goal is to temperature-cycle as much as possible. This is basically the opposite of how wine is supposed to be aged, quietly resting in the cool basement. It makes sense, since if you mistreat wine you end up with vinegar, so the way to make good vinegar is to apply as the forces of aging vigorously. Anyway the end result is utterly delicious.
Torre degli Asinelli, Bologna
I like climbing towers. In Venice Michelle and I climbed St. Mark’s Campanile. In Florence we climbed Giotto’s Campanile. In Rome we went to the top of the dome of St. Peter’s. So in Bologna, of course I had to climb the Two_Towers, specifically the Torre degli Asinelli. The climb itself was not too bad, mostly well-built flights of stairs, with only a couple of narrow or short flights. The staff controlled traffic so we didn’t have to squeeze past anyone going the other way (this drove us crazy at Giotto’s Campanile). The views from the top were great, the balcony has enough space and the grates don’t obstruct the vista. This was Saturday evening and the center of the city was closed to traffic and absolutely packed with people as you can see looking down onto Via Rizzoli. Overall I would give the Torre degli Asinelli 5 staircases out of 5.
Sorry, the picture looking up from the base of the tower is sideways. I don’t know how to fix that in this WordPress gallery. The point is that the tower is tall!
It seems that the photos in the gallery are not clickable. That’s silly. WordPress is disappointing me. To see a full size image, try right-clicking or control-clicking and choosing Open Image in New Window (or something like that).
Posted in Bologna
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Pork-flavored Potato Chips
Every country has different snack foods. We like to try the most unusual ones we can find. Italy has made a very strong showing with the piùgusto series of potato chips. We tried the pork and herbs flavor. I don’t know what I expected. They taste like pork and herbs.
Next time we’ll try the Za’atar, paprika and mango, or “tomatoes in season” flavors.
Posted in Food
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I have retroactively posted “Passeggiata del Gianicolo”, Rome trip day 4, back-dated to Sep 26. If you haven’t seen it yet, please scroll down.
September 29, 2021
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Panini in Benevento
Panini from a tiny grocer’s on Via Mellusi. One prosciutto crudo with a soft cheese whose name I didn’t catch, one salami with provolone. Both incredible.
Passeggiata del Gianicolo
On Sunday, our last day in Rome, we walked along the Gianicolo (Janiculum) hill on the west side of central Rome. The Passeggiata del Gianicolo, a series of roads and stairs, meanders up the hill through a series of ever-better vistas of the city.
Along the way are memorials to some of the founders and figures of the unified republic: statues of Anita and Giuseppe Garibaldi, busts of soldiers and officers who fought along with them for unification, a wall etched with the constitution of the short-lived Roman Republic of 1849, and a mausoleum to the soldiers who died trying to defend it from the invading French forces who returned the Pope to power over Rome. This is a lot of Italian history that I don’t really know. From high school world history I really only remember a little bit about Cavour and Mazzini and Garibaldi and the unification proclaimed in 1861. I’ve got some studying to do. My unusual citizenship process does not require passing a history and civics test like naturalizing to the US, but I probably ought to learn all of that anyway.
The day was warm and humid so even though the climb wasn’t very high we were tired and sweaty at the end. We decided not to visit the Botanical Garden in the afternoon since it would involve climbing the hill a second time. That’ll be top of our list for next visit because Michelle adores botanical gardens.
We had dinner at the extremely popular Roscioli Salumeria – our main course was basically a big platter of salumi and cheese as recommended by the server. Delicious.
Less-popular Churches of Rome
I will fill this post with more detail once I’m back at my computer. Like when I create and backdate new posts, I’ll leave a note at the top so you know there’s something new to see in the earlier posts you’ve already seen.
Today we went on a walk around central Rome and visited a handful of less-popular churches. Hat tip to romewise.com for the recommendations – link goes here to their list of churches.
- Sant’Ignazio di Loyola, near Pantheon. There is an optical illusion – I don’t want to give away the trick though.
- Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, in Piazza della Republica near the station. Built into the stone floor is a meridian line, and in the walls are oculi to let the sun in. At solar noon the sunlight crosses the meridian line and the distance along the line shows the date of the year. It’s like a sundial but for the date instead of the time. An unusual thing to have in a church. I suppose that by the time this was built in the 1700s the church had updated its previous opinions about the movements of the sun and the earth, see: Galileo
- Santa Maria Maggiore. This is actually a very popular church as it is directly owned by the Vatican, but it was on the route and we hadn’t seen it.
- Santa Prassede. Byzantine mosaics. Unfortunately closed in the afternoons when we arrived.
- Santi Cosma e Damiano. 6th century mosaics, built on top of a Roman temple in the Forum.
Posted in Rome
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Due Pinse
Roman-style pinsa (not quite pizza, it has a whole parallel history) at a little trattoria/pinseria called Tosca near Teatro dell’Opera. I got a Romana and Michelle got a Diavola. Smoked provola cheese might be her new favorite thing.
