Author: Rosie

Its Sunday in Venice, all seems to be a little quiet….there are no markets, the bells are tolling for Mass and the tourists haven’t got out of bed yet.  Rosie and The Operator too are on a leisurely Sunday clock, we wander around the island and marvel at the beauty, The Operator has put the map away and off we go.  

Shakespeare got it right when he said in the Merchant of Venice ‘What News on the Rialto?’ The Rialto bridge is the place where all Venetian stories end up and where everyone wants to be….literally, it just heaves with people and is right across from our window.

Bologna has a nice compact old town and looks so different to the other cities we have been.  The city itself is squat, boxy and a little grim looking with its gothic architechture.  So saying the other nickname for the city is La Rossa, meaning ‘the red one’ based on the terracotta colours of the buildings and the roof tops…..when the sun is out the city glows.  
 

Late afternoon the storm did come in, first with gentle rain and then it got heavier and heavier, the restaurant across the harbor with the white umbrellas closed it terrace and we had a lovely meal inside the vaulted restaurant.  It was abit of an exposed hike to get home and after a couple bottles of wine, but we got there just as the weather became really nasty, thunder and lightening rolled in and we slept to the sound of the roaring wild ocean.

We reached Manarola within 4 mins of train travel…the towns seem to have a tidal flow of people as well as the ocean, whenever the train arrives, pretty much every hour, hundreds of visitors disgorge into the small towns and you fight your way into the main street. It was still raining pretty heavily when we arrived but we had a plan, we were going against the flow of people which naturally walk downhill to the harbor….we were going uphill…