What did I get myself into? Overseas Adventure Travel solicits videos for their website, so I decided to make a slide show of this trip. It was my first attempt, and it’s just a basic show without all the fancy transitions. To watch full screen, start the video, and then expand to full screen by clicking on the symbol in the lower right corner.
I hope you enjoy!
Ciao!
Note: If small group travel is of interest to you, I highly recommend Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT). Although Bruce and I travel together, they do not charge a single supplement for those who travel on their own. Singles also get their own room at hotels. If you book, you can get $100 off your trip by providing my name and customer number (Elaine Krugman, #3018126) as the person who referred you. I will also get $100 off future travel– a win-win!
A one-hour train ride from Bologna is Ravenna, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its complex of early Christian mosaics and monuments. Ravenna was the seat of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century and later the westernmost outpost of the Byzantine Empire. This town is full of history, but it was the gorgeous mosaics we found most intriguing.
(For all pictures, click on the image to see full screen view.)
Our jaws dropped when we entered the 1,400-year-old octagonal shaped Basilica of San Vitaleand saw the mosaics representing scenes from the Old Testament, as well as depictions of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. We were mesmerized by the beautiful detail of the ceiling mosaics and even the floor.
Even the mosaic floor was beautiful!
Basilica San Francesco; the mosaics were underwater, and there were goldfish swimming around!
The mosaic ceiling in the Tomb of Dante
Our group: Oscar, Jenny, Mark, Deb, Nancy, Bruce, and me
In the afternoon, we visited the workshop of one of Ravenna’s most skilled restorers of mosaics. Ivana demonstrated how mosaics are made and restored, which was fascinating.
These were mosaics Ivana made for sale in her workshop gallery.
An included lunch in between was atPasatelli, a restaurant that had previously been a movie theater. It is still used for movies and performances that can be enjoyed while dining on delicious Italian cuisine. While most of the group dined on a sampling of locally made prosciutto, mortadella, and salami, I enjoyed the array of parmesan cheeses and a vegetarian salad. It was a memorable 3-course (with wine) feast!
The following are a few photos shot while walking the streets of Ravenna:
This is not wide angle distortion, folks. This tower really was leaning! Supports have been added to the bottom section to prevent it from toppling over.
This massive mound of sundried tomatoes took up an entire five-foot table!
After our train ride back to Bologna, our driver took a detour so we could enjoy a panorama view of the city. It had been a beautiful, sunny day, and the city below shined in warm shades of terra cotta.
This was a view up from the garden of our hotel.
The day concluded with another delicious dinner accompanied by an artfully-presented basket of bread.
The following morning, we would be off to learn all about…
… The Making of Parmesan Cheese: A Stork Carries the Twins
Stay tuned!
Note: If small group travel is of interest to you, I highly recommend Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT). Although Bruce and I travel together, they do not charge a single supplement for those who travel on their own. Singles also get their own room at hotels. If you book, you can get $100 off your trip by providing my name and customer number (Elaine Krugman, #3018126) as the person who referred you. I will also get $100 off future travel– a win-win!
Italy is divided up into twenty regions, and each region is further divided into provinces. Bologna is located in the Emilia-Romagna region, in Northern Italy, and has a population of about 400,000. Known as the Red City for its Spanish-styled red tile rooftops, it is also known as the Fat City for its rich cuisine.
We sampled some of Bologna’s rich cuisine during our first dinner together, a delicious meal that concluded with a classic Italian dessert, panna cotta, a delicious custard topped with chocolate sauce. If this first meal was any indication of what was to follow over the next three weeks, we were in for many treats to come!
(For all pictures, click on the image to see full screen view.)
Our first morning in Bologna was spent learning how to make tortellini and other varieties of pasta. Our tour leader, Oscar, jumped right in!
Oscar, 29, recently became a tour leader and was trained by Ben, the senior Italian tour leader who would be leading us throughout the base program in Tuscany and Umbria. (I will have more to share about Ben in future posts.)
Hailing from Rome, Oscar is a professional musician. When I asked him about his music in our pre-trip e-mails, he sent me a link to his music and website. Take a listen to this . That’s Oscar on bass, and he is a phenomenal talent!
It was Oscar’s music that inspired an instant connection both Bruce and I shared with him, because of our music backgrounds. We had a lot of fun talking music with him. Oscar has a great voice, too, and that night, when we returned to the same restaurant where we were taught how to make pasta, we got to hear it. In a conversation about classic rock bands, I happened to mention that The Who’s, “Behind Blue Eyes” was the only song I knew the words to that was also in my vocal range. He broke out in an impromptu rendition, encouraged me to join in, and then he harmonized with my melody line. I wonder what the other diners in the restaurant thought of that?
During another dinner, Oscar was telling us about an American jazz musician he met in Bologna at a music conference and mentioned this musician was a music professor at USC. I asked (half-joking, because of the slim odds), “Oh, was it Richard Smith?” Bruce and I had heard Richard perform in San Diego and talked with him a bit afterwards when I purchased his CD. Oscar, startled, took a business card out of his wallet and said, “Yes!” passing the card down for me to examine. I thought he was kidding, and the card would have another name on it, but sure enough, it was Richard Smith’s business card! Small world!!
What was it about Italy and small world stories? The first time I was in Rome, I was with my mom, and we were weaving our way through a very busy plaza between the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps, when I spotted former San Diego Mayor, Roger Hedgecock. He was a member of the University Club where I was a server, trainer; and, created and ran a jazz dinner concert series. I had served him a few times, so we were familiar with each other. In Rome, he was leading a tour group of listeners of his radio talk show program.
Shocked to see him (I mean what were the chances???), I went up to say hello, not noticing who else was in the group. Then, I heard an excited voice from the group exclaim, “I know you! You serve us at the University Club!” It was Dr. Vance and his wife, two of my regulars at the club. And, that, my friends, is the photo op. that got away. Why didn’t I grab a picture of us???
Back to Oscar, we had a lot of laughs, a lot of fun, and a lot of gelato together during our six-day pre-extension. During one day in Parma, Bruce and I had gelato with Oscar during our afternoon free time AND for dessert with the group that night. He taught me how to order it in Italian, “Una coppetta di gelato al cioccolato, per favore?” I repeated that request many times throughout our three weeks in Italy…
Now, then, are more of the sites we saw in Bologna during our walking tour, in between making pasta and savoring our gelatos:
Bologna is a UNESCO-protected medieval city. One of the sites we toured was the University of Bologna that dates back to 1088, and was the first higher learning institute in the Western world.
The ceilings were incredibly ornate!
This narrow pedestrian street was full of restaurants and specialty grocery stores.
The Emilia-Romagna region is known for producing many Italian delicacies. We learned a lot about all of them in the days ahead.
That’s a lot of parmesan cheese!
A dessert on display where we opted for gelato, although this looked enticing!
This is “chocolate salami,” a dessert I did enjoy. It’s called “salami,” because it’s made in a salami-shaped log. Delizioso!
We were scheduled to go to Costa Rica this past January; however, a dysautonomia diagnosis last year was the convincing wake-up call that my body’s aversion to heat was going to override my heart’s love for tropical environments. Thirty years of trying to fit that square peg in a round hole was only getting worse.
Back to the drawing board with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT), we decided to switch over to a cool-weather trip to Italy, during a not-too-hot-not-too-cold time period. We had visited the Calabria region in 2019, and we wanted to see more of Italy. Past cruise ship stops to the country while “working” as a guest lecturer aboard Princess Cruises with my mom had given me just enough of a taste of the Tuscany region that I knew I wanted to return. Thankfully, Bruce wanted to see more of Italy, too. While we were at it, we thought we would add on the pre-extension trip to Bologna and Parma.
Although we had done excellent small group tours with Vantage Travel and Odysseys Unlimited, this particular itinerary with Overseas Adventure Travel sounded great, and the company was highly recommended by several neighbors and friends. Besides, of the three companies, OAT’s tours have the smallest group size at 16 maximum.
As it turned out, there were six of us on the pre-extension and fifteen on the base trip. Fortunately, it was a fantastic group! We all got along, and everybody was on time, all the time. Our tour leaders even congratulated us on being such a great group to lead!
In the following days (more like weeks…), I will share our experiences and my photography of what turned out to be a perfect 21-day trip through the Emilia-Romagna, Toscana, and Umbria regions. We saw and learned so much! In addition to the history, we learned how mosaics are made and restored; and, how Carrara marble is extracted and worked. We also learned how pasta, parmesan cheese, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, wine, goat cheese, prosciutto, Parma ham, and chocolate are all made; and, we went on a truffle hunt in the mountains. We sampled it all—and, a lot of it! The food was delizioso!
Please join me on our Italian adventure. Add your e-mail to “Sign me up!” and you will be notified each time I post. (You can always unsubscribe later.) Grazie!
(For all pictures, click on the image to see full screen view.)
On our way to Italy!
Meanwhile, I will leave you today with a few scenes around Piazza Santo Stefano, the main square in Bologna and Basilica Santo Stefano:
Basilica of Santo Stefano, a complex of religious edifices
The Church of Holy Sepulchre dates back to the 5th century and was rebuilt in the 11th century by Benedictine monks following a Hungarian invasion.
Finally, we couldn’t complete our first day in Italy without a gelato. Oscar, our tour leader, sent us to his favorite place in town, a popular place!
That’s Bruce!
And, this is Oscar giving us a briefing on tomorrow’s events. (More on Oscar to come!)
Note: If small group travel is of interest to you, I highly recommend Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT). Although Bruce and I travel together, they do not charge a single supplement for those who travel on their own. Singles also get their own room at hotels. If you book, you can get $100 off your trip by providing my name and customer number (Elaine Krugman, #3018126) as the person who referred you. I will also get $100 off future travel– a win-win!
Elaine-iaK's Travels: A Traveler's Tales of People, Places, Photos, Pools... and CHOCOLATE! 