Italy travel | Travel Thru History

Dodging Bandits in Orgosolo, Sardinia

Italy’s Emerald Coast

by Paola Fornari

“So where are you heading next?” the news agent asked, as he handed me my change and my postcards.

“Porto Cervo,” I replied.

“Why do you want to go there?” he asked. “That’s not the real Sardinia. You should stay here in Orgosolo, and explore further up into the hills.”

We had been planning a trip to Porto Cervo, the capital of Sardinia’s Emerald Coast – the Costa Smeralda – a thin strip of idyllic coastline on Sardinia’s north-eastern tip, seventy miles north of Orgosolo. The Aga Khan fell in love with the area in 1958, and bought it up, developing it into a designer-chic oasis for the rich and famous. That’s where we were heading. Instead, we took the news agent’s advice to explore ‘the real Sardinia’.

When we had begun our journey to Orgoloso earlier that day, driving up the mountainside, navigating narrow hairpin bends, my husband questioned the precarious journey.

“Are you sure this is wise?” he had asked.

I was engrossed in reading The Rough Guide: ‘ … bandit capital … between 1901 and 1954, Orgosolo – population 4,000 – clocked up an average of one murder every two months.’ Always the adventurer, I dismissed his worry. “Of course it’s wise,” I reassured him. “ The Guide wouldn’t recommend it if it wasn’t worth seeing. Oh listen, here’s another good bit: ‘… crime wave … lucrative practice of kidnapping … ’”

I must admit that as I read, I was becoming mildly anxious. Apart from the horror stories and scary sheer drops into the valley, there was a steady drizzle of rain and our battered hired car was struggling. But as this expedition had been my brainwave, I had to feign confidence and enthusiasm.

When we finally reached the town of Orgosolo, we had been relieved to find a few tourist coaches parked in the main square. It seems we had inadvertently taken the more tortuous of two eighteen-kilometre routes up from Oliena in the valley below. Tourists milled about, and there was an air of relaxed friendliness about the place. So we decided to stay. Orgosolo is an ugly town in a beautiful region called the Barbagia. The name is a corruption of Barbaria, which is what the Romans called the area, because even back in Roman times, the people had a reputation for being pretty fierce. It is close to the Supramonte, a high plateau dotted with caves and canyons.

Traditionally, shepherd communities inhabited the region, the men spending much of their time away from home with their herds. It is a poor area, and there was large-scale emigration after the war. Sheep-rustling was rife: poor shepherds would steal sheep from neighbouring villages, but never from their own. As in Calabria and Sicily, the people have developed their own way of dealing with disagreements and disputes, by-passing the authorities, and organised crime is rampant. In the early twentieth century a feud over inheritance lasted fourteen years and almost wiped out two entire families. Vendettas are still common today, happening usually around Christmas time, when families are gathered together. Usually victims are shot in the face, to prevent the families from being able to have open-casket funerals. We noticed that many local women were dressed in the traditional black clothing worn by women in mourning.

In the middle of the 20th century, sheep-rustling was gradually replaced by kidnapping, which was found to be more lucrative. Initially the victims were wealthy local industrialists, but soon, high-profile holidaymakers became targets. They were hidden in the hills until their ransom demands were met.

The most well-known case was that of Farouk Kassam, a seven-year-old Belgian boy of Lebanese origin who in January 1992 was snatched by three masked gunmen from his holiday home in Porto Cervo. He was held for seven months in caves and hideouts. Part of his ear was sliced off and sent to his parents, in a bid to hasten the ransom payment. This triggered a wave of public revulsion, and a massive police hunt began. When he was reunited with his father, Farouk said ‘I didn’t cry.’

Graziano Mesina, known as ‘The Scarlet Rose’, Sardinia’s most notorious bandit, was pulled out of prison, where he’d been on and off for about half a century, to negotiate with the kidnappers, and was seemingly instrumental in the boy’s release, although the details are not clear. Some say a ransom of two million pounds was paid; the police deny this. Mesina was released from prison in 2004, and lives in Orgosolo with his sisters.

A local cult hero, Mesina’s romantic image was perhaps a little exaggerated. In 1960, unable to find his brother’s murderer, he found and killed the assassin’s brother instead. However, he was a Robin Hood-type figure, who robbed from the rich to give to the poor, and only killed those who betrayed him. Apparently, in the Sixties, he kidnapped a young boy, but repented only hours later, and released him, giving him money to buy chocolates on the way home.

In 1975, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Resistance and the liberation, the residents of Orgosolo decided they needed to improve the town’s reputation. They started decorating entire outside walls of houses and shop fronts with murals, many of them about the celebration. The town already had some murals dating back to the Sixties.

This new trend took off in a big way, and now the entire town is decorated with huge and beautifully executed Cubist-style frescoes, with subjects ranging from local political issues and the struggle of the peasant society, to 9/11, famine in Africa, or purely artistic trompe-l’oeils. Some are more recent, such as one depicting a letter from a child in Sarajevo, saying she is tired of the violence.

But the makeover was only cosmetic. Violence in Orgosolo has continued. In December 1998, a local priest, Graziano Muntoni, was shot dead for preaching against gun violence. His murderer is still at large. In December 2007, Peppino Marotto, a local poet in his eighties, was shot six times in the shoulders, and died, when he went to buy his morning paper. He was an unlikely target, a man who dearly loved and wrote about peasants, shepherds and brigands. But it seems that this was the end of a vendetta dating back fifty years. In typical Sardinian fashion, the locals clammed up. Marotto died on a busy street and strangely enough, or maybe not so strangely, no witnesses have come forward.

Perhaps, had I known all this at the time – rather more than the sketchy few lines provided by the Rough Guide – I may have answered a little differently to my husband’s ‘Is this wise?’ and insisted we go on to Porto Cervo. But then ignorance is bliss. There are plenty Porto Cervo-type glitzy resorts around the world, and they’re all pretty much the same, but there’s only one Orgosolo!

Barbagia Experience: Mamoiada and Orgosolo Day Tour from Cagliari

If You Go:

For a comprehensive site to learn more about Orgosolo history, accommodation and events, visit the Orgosolo, Sardinia online travel guide.
About Orgosolo:
– Population: 4779
– Area Barbagia di Ollolai, Sardinia
Sardinia Tourism website

About the author:
Paola Fornari was born on an island in Lake Victoria, and was brought up in Tanzania. She has lived in almost a dozen countries over three continents, speaks five and a half languages, and describes herself as an “expatriate sin patria”. Her articles have featured in publications as diverse as “The Buenos Aires Herald”, “The Oldie”, and “Practical Fishkeeping.” Wherever she goes, she makes it her business to get involved in local activities, explore, and learn the language, thus making each new destination a real home. She currently resides in Belgium.

Photo credits:
First Orgosolo mural photo by rbtraun from Pixabay
All other photos are by Paola Fornari.

Lover’s Spat With Rome

Falling Out With Italy’s Eternal City

by Carol Stigger

I love Rome so much I live there two months every year. But last year, Roma morphed from lover to spouse who no longer strived to satisfy, much less delight me. It suddenly wasn’t enough to span the Tiber with bridges, illuminate the ruins, and provide buses that stopped at posted stations whether they were empty or so packed that bodies and backpacks oozed from both entrata and ustica doors. I did not have an ah ha! moment, that moved my passion for Roma to the echoes of Medieval bells and memories of riso gelato. It was good while it lasted. And then it was over.

Maybe it was when I was trying to exit the Pantheon elbowing through conquering armies of school groups, stampeding tourists, pickpockets in training. Or when I tried get a glimpse of Raphael’s tomb, a touching monument graced with fresh flowers, and all I could see was the backs of tee shirts. Perhaps it was it the canned beans served at a restaurant near the train station and the waiter’s lyrical lies that he had picked them that day in his garden? Or the group from Kansas trooping through Piazza Navona pointing at St. Agnes’s church and calling it St. Peter’s, then turning to the Fountain of Four Rivers and tossing in coins rejoicing that they had found Trevi Fountain. Was it just me, the same me who must flame with passion for some author, artist, beach or vista? Had I fallen out-of-love with Roma?

So I declared a trial separation in this decade-long romance. I hunkered down in my Rome apartment on a hill over looking lines of laundry and pretended I was in Naples. I left my neighborhood only twice and briefly walking down to St. Peters to see if Roma was having a party without me. The lines to enter the church were long and weary. I suspected Roma missed the quick slap of my sandals as I had once breezed through security, the wait as brief as a ciao. I walked to Campo dei Fiori. The crowd was dense, raucous. Did Roma missed my strolls around the Renaissance palazzi, the fountain, and shadows of the brooding Bruno? Yes, Roma was pining for me, but he had changed. He would have to find another woman, one who could see beyond the crowds into his eternal heart. I must have sensed this would happen, for I had bought tickets to Spain shortening my Roman holiday by two weeks. My snap decision to blind date a new country was affirmed.

Then my friend T.J. called. “Meet me in front of Santo Spirito—we’ll have dinner.”

Santa Spirito encompasses three city blocks. The church entrance, hospital entrance, the hall of the frescos in eternal restoration process entrance, back door entrance? Where should I meet him? Under the ustica sign? Beside the mailbox? Across from the bus stop? The street is fourteen lanes of Inde 500 contenders and three pedestrian islands, so you get to play dodge car. Thoughts of Spain and tapas reminded me I was not suicidal, so I waited for a group of nuns and crossed in sanctified safety. T.J. is the softer side of Rome with his engaging smile and warm ciao, ciao. And, he knew how to rekindle my passion – a small trattoria, facing the Tiber, that has been cooking food with love and serving it with pride for more than seventy years. Everyone was speaking Italian. The bresola was va bene, the pasta carbonara was molto bene, the panna cotta smooth as a Latin lover, the espresso Arabian, and the limoncello free.

T.J. suggested we go to the fireworks at St. Peter’s Square in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Swiss Guards. It was a balmy night and St. Peters Square is St. Peter’s Square. To my right was the molten glow of the church; to the left, a shadowy fountain; in front, an Egyptian obelisk that had been converted to Christianity with a cross on top. One star, a half moon, and a white cloud hung like a stage drop behind the obelisk.

The loud speaker crackled and T.J. translated the welcome, the thanks to the Swiss guards. “This square has seen fireworks for more than 400 years to commemorate. You may be standing where Michelangelo stood to watch fireworks” I imagined the artist’s tormented face smooth in anticipation of seeing beauty he did not have to wring from his soul for some sanctimonious pope who stiffed him.

Then darkness and silence. An explosion of lights arched, danced, and dripped to a classical number heavy on the Glorias. Then more lights danced over the obelisk and over our heads to the Hallelujah Chorus. T.J. tugged my arm. “Are you okay?” I was crying, because just then I renewed my vows with Roma. The Hallelujah Chorus ended with more explosions of arching, dancing, dripping lights.

I walked home, not wanting the evening to end. The air had grown cooler as I walked the fifteen blocks that gently slope up to my apartment. Flower markets on every corner sweetened the air. People passing greeted me “Buena sera.”

Despite non-refundable plane tickets and a non-returnable flippy red dress I’d bought for flamenco, I stood up Madrid.

The Secrets of Ancient Rome: Private Full-Day Walking Tour

If You Go:

Independent travel to Rome is exciting and rewarding if you do your homework and pack a good guidebook plus Rick Steves’ Italian Phrase Book. Figure out what you want to see before you go and how you will get from place to place. Stay in a pensione in the historical center, not in a chain hotel outside the center, so you can easily take a mid-day break. You will be in a good location to walk around the lighted piazzas and ruins late at night without worrying about finding a cab or a bus back to your hotel.

St. Peter’s is free, but the line to get into the basilica can be daunting. Try early morning or right after lunch. Another dreaded line is the one into the Vatican Museums. Sign up for a tour of the museums, which will cost a little more but will save standing in a two-hour line. Another line you will not want to endure is the one to the free restrooms outside the basilica. Facing the church, you will see the restrooms to your left. If you walk right instead of left and go through the colonnade, you will find a free Vatican restroom with little or no line.

If you are making a day of Vatican City, avoid the pricey, ho-hum restaurants on Borgo Pio. Instead, you can enjoy a reasonable, wonderful meal at La Vittoria. Cross the left colonnade, go through the underground tunnel, look to your left and you will see the restaurant.

About the author:
Carol Stigger is a writer specializing in developing nation poverty, microfinance, and travel. She lives near Chicago with two Boston Terriers. She lives in Rome two months a year and spends her winters in India working with a community development organization. You may visit her Web site www.stiggerink.com or email her at carolstigger@sbcglobal.net.

All photos are by Carol Stigger.

Venice, Mistress of the Seas

Italy

by W. Ruth Kozak

As I step outside my small hotel, it is the light in the piazza that impresses me first, the way it filters through the narrow passageway, a bright shaft of daylight flooding across the cobbled path. I stand transfixed for a moment, breathing in the scent of old stones and pungent sea. It is my first morning in Venice and I am anxious to explore her ancient promenades.

Venice is a city dappled with light, tremulous and flashing, shimmering gently beneath the bridges and seeping into the shadowy lanes. Once known as Serenissima, the most Serene Republic, for centuries the sun shimmering on gilded domes and pinnacles, the soft splash of the gondoliers’ poles as they guide their sleek black crafts through the narrow waterways has been the romantic inspiration of artists, poets and lovers. And now I am here, enchanted by her sensual allure.

When I step into San Marco Square, it is absolutely deserted except for some early-morning artists sitting at their easels in front of the Doge’s Palace. I head down toward the Grand Canal and round the corner to view the Bridge of Sighs, so named because prisoners crossing it to the cells below were heard sighing. The canal is already bustling with watercraft: vaparettos, water taxis, motor launches, squat barges and the ubiquitous black gondolas. In Venice getting around by boat is the main means of transportation. There are no cars. A good way to see the city and the outlying islands is by vaparetto, the water buses that ply Venice’s canals along with the fleets of other craft. I buy a three day pass so I can hop on and off at any stop.

Venice is truly a wonder, and in spite of the reports of how it is sinking into the sea, it appears to be very much afloat. I visualize Venice in her heyday when gilded barges plied the waterways and gondoliers cruised the canals. The grandeur of the Doges still exists in the elaborate Palaces and residences that flank the wide cobblestone plaza of San Marco and along the canals are the hotels and houses where famous writers and noble families once lived.

I make my way to the Rialto Bridge, a commercial centre of Venice since the 9th century where the city’s first market was established. Ships from around the world once docked here. It was the first bridge built to span the Grand Canal and is the most used. From here, I take a vaparetto to the isolated ghetto in Cannaregio. The term ‘ghetto’ originated in Venice referring to the foundries where metals for cannons were cast. The Jews who came to Venice in the 14th and 15 century were only allowed to live in the ghetto and were actually locked in at night, not allowed freedom to venture around the city. Because as they couldn’t expand, they built up, so the buildings here are the tallest in Venice

I eat lunch at a pleasant little sidewalk cafe on one of the shaded streets then head back across the bridges and through the maze of alleys to Castello, the Greek community at St. George Dei Greci. Once about 4,000 Greeks lived here , mostly merchants, book publishers, artists, scribes and literary scholars. Greece always had a strong link with Venice when the Venetian navy ruled the seaways. It seemed appropriate that I should end up at the Arsenal, guarded by its two great lions brought from Greece in 1687.

The Republic’s navy was docked here and ships built and maintained. At the Naval Museum I learned something of Venice’s naval history. Venetian shipbuilders were renown for their fabulous designs. There are models of all types of ships, gondolas and fishing craft used over the centuries, including elaborate models of Doges’ ceremonial barges all ornately gilded. I imagine Venice at the height of her glory, the lagoon and canals crowded with all these magnificent vessels.

It seemed fitting after my tour of the naval museum, to take a gondola ride. It’s hard to describe the serene feeling you get as you cruise soundlessly along the canals. At each corner the gondolier shouts “Ohye!” to alert on-coming traffic. As the sleek high-prowed craft slides gracefully through the water I experience Venice as it used to be, Mistress of the seas, an enchanting seductress.

Enchanting Venice – Private Gondola Experience

If You Go:

The best time to see Venice is before eight in the morning and after eight at night when you can wander the labyrinth of alleyways free of the crowds, Venice is small, merely a cluster of tiny islands connected by a labyrinth of canals and alleyways only an arms width across. It isn’t difficult to navigate yourself around and you won’t get lost.

A three-Island Cruise is offered to the islands of Burano, Murano and Torcello for 19 Euro but you can also reach these islands and the Lido by vaparetto.

Private Tour: Murano, Burano and Torcello Half-Day Tour

FACTS: The central waterway is the Grand Canal (2 miles long). From that, smaller canals branch out. There are said to be 177 canals following old natural watercourses meandering through the city. When the tides are high parts of the city, like San Marco Square flood. Wooden walkways are provided.

Secrets of Venice Private Walking Tour with Guide

About the author:
It’s true that Venice really seduces you. Being there was one Ruth’s biggest thrills and no doubt one day she’ll return to cruise those waterways and sit in the piazzas. (You can see a picture of her in Venice on the Contact page.) In the meantime, Ruth is off to Greece again, her second home, in search of more stories. Email: contact@travelthruhistory.com

Photo Credits:
Piazza San Marco by Jakub Hałun / CC BY-SA
All other photographs are by W. Ruth Kozak

Passeggiata: Strolling Through Italy

Becoming Italian

by G.G. Husak

When Al and I cross the ocean, we become Italian, at least in our own minds. We let go of our compulsive, time-oriented ways and our distress at the minor inconveniences in our lives and try to just let things happen.

In Italy, life proceeds at its own pace and with its own rhythm. When a hotel manager says that the room will be ready, “In ten minutes,” he doesn’t mean by the clock. He means, “In a little while,” an indeterminate amount of time. Maybe it will be soon but more likely later. Once we accept this, we relax, no longer going back up to the desk every two seconds to find out if the room is ready yet. Now, we leave our bags at the desk and go out for a walk, not caring when the room is ready.

When we arrive, we try as soon as possible to settle into the rhythm of things and become Italian in our reactions. Italian waiters in a touristy outdoor cafe can avoid making eye contact almost indefinitely. We learn that if we just sit and wait, rather than trying, American-style, to get a waiter’s attention, we will get served and probably sooner than if we overact. We get used to things the way they are, adapting to variations from city to city and region to region; we get on Italian time.

In Italy things happen soon enough, but there is never a rush. Even in traffic when people are honking their horns, seemingly in a hurry to get around circles and through intersections, much of the intensity seems to be for the sport of it. The beeping and tooting horns are the automobile version of verbal communication rather than driver hostility and road rage that horns often convey back home. Energy is expelled but no harm done.

From our first trips, I have known that our versions of Italy, our sense of the place and of its people, is colored by a romantic notion. This is after all our Italy, not an objective view based on factual research or authentic cultural experience justified by having lived there for years. We are not Italians and not experts on their culture, but only on our subjective experience of it.
But our experiences have formed in us consistent impressions. We know that we can stay as long as we want at a dinner table, that we will not get the check until we ask for it, that we are welcome to relax as long as we want, with or without a coffee or drink in front of us. We know that we will not be given glass after glass of water in an attempt to urge us to leave, as happens in some U.S. restaurants, or feel pressured by the lines waiting for our table.

Italian business owners don’t seem to need to have constant growth and improvement. More and bigger is not necessarily better. The attitude seems to be: If one restaurant supports the family, provides work and good meals, why expand? And as Al once said, looking around a small trattoria on the ground floor of an old building, “There’s no room to add on anyway.”

We enjoy becoming Italian in our feeling of familiarity about little things. We know that if we sit at a table in a cafe and have our coffee served to us, it may cost several dollars, but if we stand at the counter, drinking the same coffee without table service, it will be 50 cents. We know that ordering “coffee” or “caffè” will bring us a cup of espresso, rather than American style coffee. If we want a lighter drink, coffee with milk, we order a cappuccino or latte. We know to leave a small coin beside the cup as a tip, even if we are served standing.

We are used to seeing loose sugar in a bowl on the bar with a couple of communal spoons, no little bags of sanitized sugar and no sugar substitutes. There is also no mess, no torn wrappers, no empty powdered cream containers, no paper to-go cups and no wooden or plastic stirrers. You get a cup, a saucer and a spoon. Occasionally an office or shop worker from down the block will come in and get a small tray of coffees, presumably for coworkers and leave with a round tray and several ceramic espresso cups. Later they will bring back the empties.

Recently in Rome, I was shocked to see my first ever take-out coffee shop, with a sign advertising cups “to-go.” I guessed they were targeting the tourists. But thinking of the waste of paper and plastic that we have unfortunately come to see as normal in many coffee shops at home, I can’t imagine that Italy would ever go down that road.

Al and I feel a sense of mastery in knowing the little details about ordering meals. We don’t expect to get water automatically but order it just like the wine. We know that if we don’t ask for water “naturalle” or “senza gas,” without bubbles, we will get mineral water. We are used to paying for a bottle of water rather than assuming water will appear, but the cost will be offset by a $4.00 bottle or carafe of pretty good house wine, which is for us a bargain. We don’t order soft drinks like Coca Cola or Pepsi but recognize fruit drinks like Orangina as the local alternative. Fewer options keep life simpler and encourage a more mindful enjoyment of one’s choice.

We know that for counter service, we should remember to pay first for what we want, get a receipt for our sandwich or croissant and cappuccino, and then hand that to the server. Once we got used to this system, we realized it wasn’t about mistrust but has advantages over our reverse approach of eating first and then paying. Deciding and paying first helps the server know exactly what you want before he gives you his attention. You decide what you want, you pay, you get your food and drink, and then you relax. You never have to stand at a cash register, juggling money with your food and drink in hand. And in a station, there is no rush to the check out cashier when the train comes. When it’s time to leave, you leave.

We try to become part of the culture, and connect with people in little ways. We say “Buon giorno,” in the morning, switch to “Buono sera” in the afternoon and occasionally the formal “Buona notte” for good night. Al casually drops first syllables for colloquial use, saying “…sera” to Italians who greet us in the elevator. If someone offers us a candy or cracker on a train, we accept, in spite of our at home injunctions against taking candy from strangers. It’s the custom to be friendly and we learn to share as well.

Italian-style, we skip breakfast except for coffee and fruit or maybe a roll. Sometimes we follow local custom and eat a big lunch and a small dinner. Sometimes we sit outside near a fountain eating sandwiches near the ripple of water. We don’t feel compelled to wash fruit purchased in the open markets, but do rinse our hands in the public fountains. Following the lead of the Italians around us and the advice of our guidebooks, we drink the water in the public fountain. We have never gotten sick.

We become Italian in spirit and in heart, and less our individual selves, as we happily merge with the culture and enjoy the energy of the present moment. We become one or two among the many in the flow of humanity in the streets and through history. Not just in the crowds walking along the streets but the long passeggiata of the past to the present, the ancients to modern life. It’s humbling for us, but in a good way, and it’s a relief to let go of roles and responsibilities and just participate in the being aspects of life.

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from ‘Passeggiata: Strolling Through Italy‘.

Book Synopsis:
This travel memoir will appeal to those who love travel in general and Italy in particular. A couple’s journey that is both personal and universal, the author recounts their first shared trip to Italy in 1993 and their annual passeggiata over the next decade. On their spring pilgrimages to major tourist centers, Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, Naples, they develop appreciation for Italy’s art, music and architecture. Wandering together along out of the way paths in tiny hill towns and seacoast villages, the author and her husband explore breathtaking scenery while marking shifts in their empty nest relationship. By traveling light and learning the vagaries of Italian life, they become Italian in spirit. The book provides many practical hints on how to travel like the locals, reminding us that even novice travelers can learn valuable lessons from immersion in another way of life, and that one’s companion can be an essential part of the pleasure of a journey.

See more about the book on Amazon.

About the author:
Since 1993, Glen Grymes Husak has made an annual pilgrimage to Italy. Glen brings her background and insight as an English teacher and museum docent to the history and art of Italy. The author is currently based in Houston, Texas. www.passeggiataitalia.com

Photo credits:
First Italian trattoria photo by Miglė Vasiliauskaitė on Unsplash
All other photos are by Glen Grymes Husak

Italy: Bologna is for Dreamers

by Sonu Purhar

I arrive in Bologna exhausted and cranky. My finger aches from snapping thousands of cheesy photos; my money belt is considerably lighter from having exchanged my euros for cheap souvenirs that will probably end up in a future garage sale back home. My quixotic Italian trip has been marred by an explosion of tourist lures in cities that throb with culture yet somehow can’t resist selling plastic mini-sculptures of James Dean-esque Davids and pillboxes shaped like gondoliers.

But then there is Bologna.

One of the last big cities left in Italy that refuses to cater to the influx of tourists, Bologna packs as much culture into its winding vias and shady piazzas as its more popular cousins, Rome and Florence. As soon as I step out of the train station, I’m swept along with the thrumming crowd through medieval, sun-washed streets. There is a potent feeling of opportunity that hangs in the air, a vibrancy and excitement for life that radiates from the young residents of this college community.

I’ve come to Bologna to wander. I disengage from the crowd and stroll up the broad Via Rizzoli, one of the town’s main arteries. As I casually check out the shops and trattorias crowding the broad roadsides, I catch a glimpse of tall structures in the distance. Rounding a corner, I stop short, awed. Massive towers thrust imposingly from the road ahead of me, a ghostly replication of New York’s fated Twin Towers. But these are no financial hotspots: they are the famed Due Torri, 12th-century structures that soar to heights of 97 and 47 metres. They lean slightly toward each other, like hesitant lovers, putting Pisa’s lone edifice to shame.

Further ahead, I emerge into a sprawling city square, resplendent under the beaming sun, with a fountain in the centre that’s attracting much attention from hooting boys and giggling girls. Drawing closer, I see that a statue of Neptune presides over the fountain, smiling saucily as jets of water arc from her breasts. Several teenagers are perched on her, frozen in naughty poses as cameras flash from all angles. I suspect this has been a favourite pastime of teenaged boys since the statue’s creation more than 440 years ago.

It seems that a soundtrack follows me as I pass through the city: in nearly every piazza, troupes of musicians entertain espresso-sipping crowds. Paying homage to Bologna’s zest for the arts – the town was named a UNESCO City of Music in 2006 – I make a brief detour through the Accadeia Filarmonica, and scan with heady excitement the displays of preserved music sheets written by Mozart, Verdi and Beethoven. Pamphlets in the music institute’s lobby advertise this year’s Bologna Festival, during which the city is blitzed with classical concerts, dances and theatre shows. Even now, months before the festival begins, I can’t turn a corner without bumping into a music club or concert hall. What with the throngs of college-aged Bolognians that converge on every street corner, I can see why the city has attained a reputation for being the city for nightlife and cultural pleasures.

Despite Bologna’s many cultural distractions, I manage to reach my prime destination, the University of Bologna – Europe’s oldest university. Over 900 years ago, the school churned out scholars like Dante, Petrarca and Boccacio, and now I’m about to enter the same halls and sit in the same classrooms.

Unlike in many North American college towns, the school isn’t segregated from the rest of the city but built directly in its bustling centre. I’m drawn to the elaborate coats of arms painted on the walls, hundreds of them running along each corridor: family crests of past graduates. Trawling the school’s labyrinthine halls, I discover a dusty library filled with ancient texts sealed under heavy glass, and centuries-old maps and globes. I find a small classroom and slip inside. On the ceiling are faded paintings of the zodiac signs. I find my sign, Aquarius, and take a seat beneath the symbol, gazing at the empty rows of benches and pretending that I’m waiting for my Lit class with Boccaccio to begin.

But the best part of my visit is when I stumble upon a small, leafy courtyard. Stopping to sit on a cool stone bench, I open my guidebook and scan it idly, wondering what other treasures the school has to offer. Then I stop cold at a jarring sentence. My eyes drift up to the well directly in front of me, and my heart quickens. I’m sitting in the exact spot where Dante penned The Divine Comedy.

My rear end is touching the same surface that Dante’s rear end touched! I think wildly.

And that moment is what sums up Bologna for me: A treasure trove of culture, bursting with hidden gems that only a wanderer – a dreamer – could possibly find, or appreciate.

If You Go:

Music lovers won’t want to miss Bologna’s internationally renowned Music Festival, usually held from May to June. www.bolognamusicfestival.it

Take your pick from the many cafes and bars that line Piazza Maggiore, a pedestrian square that lies in the oldest part of the city. Enjoy an espresso or wine while taking in the Renaissance-era buildings, enthusiastic street performers and up-and-coming musicians.

And don’t forget to pay a visit to the Fountain of Neptune [TOP PHOTO]. Built in 1566, this fun landmark is located in the piazza adjacent to Maggiore.

The University of Bologna is located on Via Zamboni, in the heart of Bologna’s bustling modern quarter.

The Due Torre are located in Piazza di Porta Ravegnana. After taking in the gravity-defying behemoths, stroll the nearby mansion-studded Via Strada Maggiore and soak in one of Bologna’s most opulent areas.

Bologna is a culinary capital of Italy, which means it’s virtually impossible not to find a great eatery. Try the elegant Ristorante al Pappagallo (notable former guests include Einstein and Hitchcock) and family-owned I Carracci, which offers some of the best wine in the region.

Bologna Tours Now Available:

Private Tour: Wine Tasting in Bologna
Musical Bologna Walking Tour with a Private Guide
Private Tour: Brothels and Bordellos of Bologna
Private Tour: Classical Bologna Walking Tour

Photo credits:
Bologna Neptune fountain by tomek999 from Pixabay
Bologna two towers by eternaltravel from Pixabay
All other photos are by Sonu Purhar,

About the author:
Sonu Purhar has been published in several magazines, including Westworld and Abroad View, as well as on various travel websites. She has backpacked through Europe and amassed a lengthy list of travel destinations and experiences – but despite her love for Italian culture, French couture and Spanish queimada, her favourite place in the world will always be Disneyland.