It's hard to believe that we arrived in Bologna a week and a half ago. I've fallen a bit behind on updating because suddenly we aren't on vacation anymore! I mean, a lot of it feels like vacation because we're in Italy but there is the business of setting things up here. We got our new phone numbers, we've been looking for an apartment, we've been to the immigration/police station three times for various paperwork items. There is still a lot we need to do.
We've spent a lot of time walking. We've been looking at apartment listings and if they are in a neighborhood we aren't familiar with (almost all of them), we go walk that neighborhood. Our first temporary rental was very centrally located so it was easy to get everywhere and it's the neighborhood we stayed in last year so it feels familiar. We switched into another temporary rental yesterday - it is a little bigger and we have it until the end of November. So we are hopeful that just the right apartment will show up between now and then. Fingers crossed as it is a very tight rental market. Like so many other places, the rise of short term rentals (Airbnb, etc) have made the market for long term rentals very difficult. Meanwhile, we just head out the door and start walking.
This past Saturday we decided to venture a little further and hopped on a train to Ferrara. It's just under 40 minutes away, so an easy trip to go have lunch and walk around a few hours. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and so beautiful.
We found a nice outdoor space to have lunch and tried the pasta dish typical of Ferrara called cappellacci. It's like a tortellini but larger and is filled with pumpkin (or butternut squash). This had preserved lemon peel on top - it was really different and very good. The bread they served was also very different - the sliced bread almost looked like a cake but it was just another type of bread. The other bread is called copia ferrarese - the four ends are like a hard breadstick and the middle is more the bread. Hard to explain.
After lunch we just started wandering. The city is full of ancient, narrow streets and we just walked without a plan.
We did stop to see the different sights - the cathedral (which is under renovation but they still let you go in - it's just that a lot of it is covered up);
the palace, which wasn't open to the public that day because there were seven(!) weddings scheduled. We did climb the stairs up to the top though.
and the castle - which has a moat and drawbridge.
We look forward to a lot more day trips - the train is so easy. We know we'll need a car to get to some places but for now this is a great way to get out and explore.