Washday in Bologna, Italy
Washing my clothes while traveling has to be one of my least favorite things to do! Perhaps that’s why I’m willing to carry around the extra weight in my pack in order to have enough clothing to only have to find a laundromat once during a three week trip. So it was that I happened to run out of clean underwear in Bologna, Italy around the half way point in my circuitous train trek through Europe. After arriving from Naples in the late afternoon and settling into a very nice hotel, The Hotel Europa, I set out with my bag of dirty clothes in search of a laundromat, a jaunt that would also have to serve as my walking tour of the city of Bologna.
Hand Gestures
After about an hour of looking around without any luck, I decided to ask directions of several people passing by. Although I don’t know much Italian, I fit right in by using a lot of hand motions and sign language. Like they say, “When in Bologna, do as the Bolognans”, or is that Rome? Anyway, looking back, I guess I shouldn’t have opened up my bag and shown them my dirty underwear, hoping they would understand what I was looking for. After getting a couple of funny looks, I finally found someone who knew exactly what I was after and gave me excellent directions to a nearby laundromat. It was a clean, reasonable, state of the art facility and in the end it turned out to be another interesting travel experience mingling with some of the local folks.
Fat, Learned and Red City
Bologna is best known for its cuisine, its universities and its red rooftops and communist leanings, thus its nickname as the ‘fat, learned and red city’. Europe’s oldest university dating back to 1088 is located in Bologna and the city is also home to a world class medical school which has trained many talented physicians. Bologna has enough beautiful plazas, palaces and basilicas to give Rome a good run for its money and its friendly, industrious citizens make it a worthwhile stop on your visit to Italy. After a wonderful breakfast in the hotel’s elegant dining room the next morning, I was off to catch the train for a beautiful ride through the Adige River Valley with its stunning views of the Dolomites, on my way to Innsbruck, Austria.
