Killing time in Ancona; Bologna

When we arrived in the port of Ancona (from Split) it was about 7:00am. Four trains leaving from Ancona to Bologna all departed before 7:00am; the next train to Bologna did not leave until 4:15pm so we had some time to kill. We wondered around some gypsy market places searching for a simple travel alarm clock (a travel companion of mine decided to leave the perfect travel alarm clock in Avezzano), we found one for 4 Euros that we are still using. It announces the time in Italian and beeps every time you touch it. I hate it.

We wandered north through Piazza Cavour until we reached the coast, saw a really big, pretty column temple-looking thing facing the water and took a picture of it:

Then we descended a thousand stairs until we were on the waterfront, and took a picture there, too. It was surprisingly a nice day. 

(The Ancona coast! above)

After that, we just lounged around a big open market, had a cappuccino and read our books until we had to head back towards the station. So, if you ever get a chance to vacation in Ancona... pass on that.

Bologna:

We were heading to Bologna to meet up with some friends who were studying in Rome and doing a weekend trip to Bologna. We had a pretty mellow Friday night, went out to a couple of different bars, had some wine, and mostly got a feel for the nightlife of Bologna. It's quite a student city (and apparently also the communist capital of Italy, hence "Red Bologna"), so we didn't have a problem finding some places to socialize with other 20-somethings. We found a pretty sweet bar called "English Empire" and hung out there for a while--please, if you have ever drank "Tennant's" English ale, please let me know what your opinion is. Everyone struggled trying to drink it.

On Saturday day, we toured around Piazza Rizzoli where the two towers are, and decided to ascend the tall one.

That's the tower we climbed to the top of--over 44 stories of square-spiral staircase. Although it was an overcast day, the views from the top were still pretty remarkable. I took a ton of pictures from up there, here's just a couple:

 

From the views up top as well as while you're walking through the streets, it's startling how medieval the city feels, at least in plan. Still, needless to say, the place is easy on the eye.

We went to the Bologna Museum of Modern Art (the MAMBo), and while many of the contemporary pieces were pretty wild, they had a temporary exhibition of Giorgio Morandi's work. I promise you would recognize his stuff--he's modern only in period, not "modern" as in weird, inexplicable art (ie, Jackson Pollock):

In any event, it was yet another museum/church/pretty thing that I could not take pictures of, but it was still a cool museum, even if I'm not keen on a lot of "modern" art.

From Bologna, we hopped on a train to Florence. I'm coming to the realization that I did not take a lot of pictures in Bologna (nor Florence, but that's because it was raining). Florence update to come soon.