Up early this morning and checked out of UNA Hotel Vittoria before catching a cab over Stazione de Santa Maria Novella to catch out Trenitalia Eurostar Italia service up to Bologna. It was only a short trip and we arrived in plenty of time to check into UNA Hotel Bolonga and check out the sites – most of which centre on the main square of Piazza Maggiore.

It was only a short trip and we arrived in plenty of time to check into UNA Hotel Bolonga and check out the sites – most of which centre on the main square of Piazza Maggiore.

Highights for me of wandering the centre of the city included Palazzo dei Notai, the Palazzo d’Accursio, the Palazzo del Podestà and the Basilica of San Petronio. But after several hours of walking we were both glad to sit down, enjoy a Beck’s and a pretty good pizza.

We wandered our way back to the hotel slowly and I spent a bit of time working on my photos and getting myself a little better planned for what we will do when we arrive in Venice tomorrow morning.

For dinner we headed to a little place up by the main square called Il Calice. Here I suffered through so much smoke that I told my colleague that I will need to bring my Ventolin out when we go for dinner in the future. People just seem to have no concept of the impact they have on others dining around them.

The disappointment about the smoke was tempered by the fact that the leg of duck that I ordered was brilliant – indeed I would easily way that it was the best piece of duck that I have ever eaten. Totally yummy.

We wandered back to the hotel via an open air screening of the documentary Food Inc which was being shown on the main square. In English with Italian subtitles, we lingered for a while until my colleague was finding it’s contents a little too off putting.