Bologna Day Four

Steps: 13,245! 9.4km!! No wonder I’m worn out.

We were taking the wee tourist train up to the church on the hill this morning, but decided to go to a place called Fico-Eataly World. It sounded great. Although 100,000 sq metres of shops and things to look at did not fill me with total joy... all that walking! But we read that there were free tricycles. Yay! And we thought there might be free samples.

Well, it wasn’t easy to get there, even with instructions from the tourist information. Get a bus to the station, then the free Fico bus to the place, away out in the country.

27B bus, according to the map. Loads of 27A buses came, one after the other. Eventually a 27B came. We relaxed and waited for bus to stop at the station. Wrong. The bus did not stop at the station. It went past it, but luckily we saw the railway lines and jumped off not too much further. And the 27A went there anyway!

When we got to Fico the first thing we noticed was...yes... terrible muzak blasting out. And it was throughout the entire place. Sometimes there were two or three different songs blasting out from different areas - most of them sounded like Donnie Osmond at his screechy worst.

We went to get a free tricycle each. There were hundreds of them, unused (they cost €550 a pop). But their two wheels were at the front (you can't really see in the photo). In fact, my bike fell over when I went to get the key out. The front wheels were not fixed, but wobbled, so you were really riding a two wheeled bike. Too scary, so they were abandoned in favour of Shank's pony, unfortunately.

We walked and walked and walked. Beautiful shops and cafes and vast expanses of wine, pasta and cheese. No customers. The place had hordes of school groups, who were mostly on the one and a half hour guided tour, which we declined (thank goodness).

Vast areas of tables were set up for prospective punters who did not arrive. The free samples amounted to one tiny sip of wine.

Eventually, at the Smeg shop (there was a wine chiller made from the bonnet of a wee yellow Fiat) I could stand the cacophony no longer (this was after a couple of hours) and escaped outside, where it was still blasting out. I was quite glad to get on the bus back to the city. A LOT of money has been invested in this, and it hasn’t quite taken off yet. Don’t know if it ever will.

We're quite well known now in the cafes. Well, a couple of waitresses greet us when we arrive. We had a cheese platter and wine and beer when we got back.

Out this evening and the whole town is out. This weather is so conducive to outdoor dining. Though funnily enough, in the mornings, the locals wear padded jackets, and scarfs and boots like it's winter! That's Neptune's shadow, and there's always somebody posing at it. JR refused, but this lady obliged. There are lots of different posters around by this chap. Not sure what they're for.

Got the boarding passes printed off at an internet shop. Let’s hope the journey back is uneventful.