Vacation to Modena, Padova, Venezia & Bologna

9/30- 4 day Vacation to Modena, Padova, Venetzia & Bologna 

Ok first, when it rains here, it rains.  There's no dilly dallying around with a light sprinkle ever, its just like, oh rain today? better bring your poncho and your river shoes.  The hills here turn into temporary water slides for the day.

We just got back from our 4 day vacation, a reward for finishing our 3 weeks of intensive Italian courses!  Glad to be reducing Italian class to only 2 hours a day instead of the 5. 

We went to Modena first where we stopped at a vinegar production place.  That was really neat.  They make the vinegar up in the attic with no temperature control, because they say that it mimics a natural setting the best.  The cooked grape mash stuff sits in these century old wooden barrels and continually evaporates while being moved from the biggest barrel to smaller and smaller barrels.  For the vinegar to be considered "Traditional" balsamic,  it must go through this process for at least 12 years.  The extra virgin vinegar sits for 25 years.   

We got to taste about 6 different kinds after we learned how it was made.  Oh my God, it is unlike any vinegar I've ever had.  My favorites were a white vinegar aged for 8 years (its so sweet! I guess it's good with fruit and on salads), a orange infused balsamic, and then I really liked both the traditional 12 and 25 year balsamics.  The vinegar is thicker, not like runny stuff from the grocery store (which the lady told us they can make grocery store balsamic in 24 hours, TOO EASY!)  I bought the white, the orange balsamic, and a non traditional 8 year aged balsamic that was almost as good and didn't have the price tag of the "traditionals".  It costs a pretty penny for the real thing. I want to say around 75 euro for a  400 or 500 ml bottle.  Yikes. 

This room full of cheese is worth 6 million Euro

Then we went to a Parmagiano factory.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE cheese, and it was very neat inside there, but it smelled SOOOO bad and I couldn't wait to be done with our tour.  And when we tasted it at the end we were still inside the production room and it smelled so bad I just couldn't enjoy the cheese.  Kinda sad. 

Then we headed to Padova, our home base for the trip.  We got checked into our hotel, M14, kinda a strange name for a hotel, sounds like a cell number or something to me.  Ariel, Erin, and I were all in a room together.  It was pretty cosy.  The room was pretty tiny, meant only for the double bed that originally was in there, but they added more or less of a cot type thing to make it a "triple".  But it was very clean! and pretty modern, we had a little fridge, a tv, and "air conditioning" (I don't know that it can be called that considering when you put your hand up to it you could barely feel the air moving) but anywho, we also had a little balcony off our room which was kinda nice.  The bathroom was sorta a one stop shop, the shower is just part of the room just in the corner and the drain in the middle of the floor. You sorta just stand by the toilet with water going everywhere.  However, It was SO nice to use a standup shower after over 3 weeks. It was the highlight of that hotel room. I really dislike my awkward shower baths that I've been taking at my host house.  Oh, and there was a hair dryer, except it sorta looked like a vacuum hose with reverse air flow.  But it worked. 

Our first day in Padova we went to a pretty neat chapel/museum that had incredible frescos in it.  They explained what all the different paintings symbolized and who the people in them were, it was neat.  After that we had a little free time to wander the streets.  Padova is fairly small, maybe even a little bit more than Siena, and much less touristy from what I could tell.  It makes walking the streets very nice, not so many people.  

We walked through their local market for a while, and then all of us girls had to make a stop at H&M where we did a bit of shopping.  I kinda wish we had one of those back home.  But maybe its a really good thing we don't.  

We met back up and had a short walk around a bit of the city where they explained to us what some of the important buildings were and the reason the city streets are built the way they are, etc.  We got to go inside the cathedral which was so beautiful.  They're strict about what you wear inside, so you have to have your shoulders covered and clothing longer than your knees, AND you can't take pictures… which was disappointing.  They actually kicked one of our girls out for taking one because we didn't know.  Thats how we found out.   In this one room the ceiling had about a hundred little cherub faces carved into the stone peering down on us, it was what I really wanted to sneak a picture of, but there was a guard in there the whole time.  I can't remember the name of their Saint there, but there is a shrine type thing devoted to him.  His teeth are in a glass ball and so are (I think, if I understood correctly) his vocal cords.  Kinda strange. 

That night about ten of us walked 3 miles to a discoteca.  First one I've ever been to.  Very fun but something I'm not used to.  We were waiting outside in a pretty long line, and we happened to be by this bouncer who was letting a random selection of women in through a side gate.  So Ariel kinda catches his attention and I think asked him if he spoke english, and he just askes "How many?" and we were like uh, 5 or 6? and he let a bunch of us right on in.  I felt like a VIP haha 

The name of the discoteca is Bimbo.  People had said they had heard good things about it, but I was kinda worried it was going to be a little trashy with a name like that, but No.  All of the bouncers and employees were in suits, it was pretty fancy inside, and I thought I was pretty dressed up when I left the hotel, but got there and realized I don't know how to dress myself for a club haha.   We stayed out super late, took a cab home which was a good call after all that dancing, got about 4 hours of sleep, got up the next morning and got on the train to Venice. 

Gondola in Venice

We had a free day in Venice so we were kinda on our own.  Even to get there.  So we went to the train station and figured out how to buy tickets and which platform to get on, all that jazz, no one told us that you have to validate your ticket with this little machine on the platform before you get on the train.  We ran into a few of our professors getting onto the train and thats when they mentioned it to us.  The board said that the train was delayed 10 minutes, so they're like yeah just run down there and validate it, we have to sit here for 10 minutes anyway before leaving.  Lies.  I wont trust the board again.  We were running back to the car for 2nd class as the guy is blowing his whistle, Ariel and I slip on and the door starts shutting with Erin on the outside still. So I am an idiot and thought maybe it was like a elevator door where if you stick a body part in the way it will bounce back open.  Nope.  Almost lost my arm.  Poor Erin is just standing outside looking at us through the window with the most helpless face on as we pull away.  Luckily there are trains leaving about every 20 minutes for Venice so she was able to get onto another.  But we learned.  When that whistle blows you better be on the train. 

Venice was rainy and gray.  It was neat to see it, but it was incredible packed with tourists, Ariel said when she was there a few years ago in June there were way less people.  It made it really hard to get around and see things.  Plus my feet were KILLING me from dancing the night before and walking about 3 miles through the streets of Venice from the train station to Piazza del San Marco, the sort of main area.  

Bridge of Sighs

We went into one of the many Carnivale apparel stores and I wanted to buy a mask so bad, but the nice ones are very expensive.  The guy working there ended up dressing me up in a mask, a hooded cape, and a hat with a vail.  I looked awesome, and it would be a sweet costume for Halloween, but I didn't really have 200 euro to spend… unfortunately.  

That night back in Padova we decided to take it easy and just hang out at the hotel.  Erin, Ariel, Jerrod and I sat out on the balcony of our hotel room and drank Fragolina (its fizzy strawberry wine!) one of my new favorite things from Italy.   We were kinda told not to hang out at our rooms and have wine because the walls of the hotel are pretty thin, etc etc. We are expert whisperers if I can say so myself. But it was a pretty funny night and really nice to just stay in and talk after such a long day.  

We were supposed to go to a lake for our final day but because of the rain the group decided to head to Bologna instead.  A very good choice.  That may be one of my favorite places we've been so far.  It is a beautiful city with a very nice central piazza area and all of the streets are lined with arcades (beautiful arched covered sidewalks pretty much).  Johan, one of our faculty, lives there part time with his girlfriend so he gave a few of us a short tour of some of the things he likes best.  Bologna actually has 2 towers that are leaning, and Johan said the shorter of the two is actually at more of a lean than the tower in Pisa.  For some reason these are overlooked, kinda like the whole city of Bologna.   It is not as big of a tourist city as Florence, Venice, and Rome, most people skip over it when traveling in Italy.  

The 2 leaning towers in Bologna

In one of the churches in Bologna

We had about 3 hours of free time to wander around the central city area and during that there was some sort of parade/procession going on.  It was a lot like the Contrada parades in Siena.  Every one was dressed up in costume from the middle ages.  People dressed as kings and queens, knights, there were about 5 trumpet players, 15 drummers and 15 flag carriers/dancers for every group or contrada or whatever it is and there were probably 8-10 groups.   It was very neat to see, and the drummers are so loud that it commands everyones attention as they pass by.  I had the shivers watching, its just really awesome.  There nothing like it to compare it to in the states.  Or at least as far as my knowledge goes.  

Back on the bus for a couple hours which is when the sky opened up and all of Heaven's water supply was released on Tuscany.  It stopped raining for the perfect amount of time for me to walk home from the bus drop of in Siena, and I swear I closed the front door and it started again.  

I ate a wonderful dinner with my family, went into a food coma and was in bed by 9 30.  Around 10:30, however, because the Contradas seem to be constantly celebrating here, there was some kind of party going on in the city that ended with a 15 minute solid fireworks show.  I live about a 25 minute walk from the city center, so not necessarily close, but it sounded like cannons were going off in the alley next to our apartment.   I love fireworks, and I'm sure it would have been awesome if I could see them, but no.  It was like there was a war going on, which waking up to that noise was a little alarming.   I think its the tight streets and the way things are built inside the city, but the acoustics are crazy!   Even when it thunders out, it sounds about 5 times as loud as normal because of the way it carries.  The few times that has happened when I've been out and about, I just about peed myself.  The locals just carry on like they didn't even hear the sonic boom that just happened. No big deal.