The Masos hit Bologna

The day after my mother and brother arrived, we went to downtown Bologna. My parents had to go to the bank, we all had to get an espresso, and my mom had to retrace the steps she used to take everyday when she worked here. So we went to the main piazza, Piazza Maggiore. We had fun with a statue, we revisited my mom's old office door, went to our favorite bar (by bar I mean cafe. Here bars are cafe's and pubs are american style bars- where you drink alcohol), and much much more.

Here is the beloved Nettuno. From this angle it's all very innocent.

But from this angle, well, let's just say it'a not so innocent and he has a hand in this trick. My dad loves to point this out everytime we come here.


And here is my mom pointing to the window to her old office. See, there she is pointing.

Located just beneath the window are these to sculptures. One of them was made by a very famous and important artist, the other was not. My mother can't remember which is the important one and who the artist was.


During medieval times, this piazza housed the main market of Bologna. Like any medieval market, I'm pretty sure you could by anything here...livestock, food, supplies, etc. This section of the wall that you see here was actually used to measure cloth, and other such measureable merchandise, in the selling process. These were very standard measurements, the names and lengths of which I do not know, but these were used back then and here they still are today.

So much happened in this Piazza. It was the heart of the town, you would see everyone here, and here is my mom and her ex-colleague Maria who was just passing by while we were taking in the view. An hour later we ran into Avanzi's son, Andres, just steps away from the Piazza.

Another nice view of the Piazza.

We then proceeded to walk around some more (mainly because I wanted to find the street where you can still see a canal and a medieval bathroom. And here it is.) Bologna used to have many canals running through it that have since been covered. But here you can still see one. Also, those half-rooms sticking out from the buildings on the right are actually old medieval bathrooms. That's right, they used to just drop their business right into the canal!

A great distinguishing factor for Bologna is its beloved porticos. How did these porticos come about you ask? Well, the University of Bologna is the oldest university in Europe (possibly the world) and thus it grew quite large at a very early age. Residents of Bologna (being as smart as they tend to be) began to build wooden additions to their apartments to create an extra room to then rent out to students of the University. Here is an example of one such addition. These additions became so common that they eventually changed the architectural style of the buildings of the city.

Here is one of these very first Porticos

Here is another that is a bit more integrated into the architecture


And here is a modern one!

Bologna, at one time, boasted many many towers throughout the city. Here is one that has been converted to residential use, probably many years ago.