Now I gear up to leave this city that I have grown to love over the last 2 months. I have made my first attempt to pack and have been totally defeated in my efforts to fit everything into my case…it is positively scary. I will have to start again and think of a different strategy somehow.
I have had my final cappuccino, bought my final meal, picked up my permisso di Soggiorno and have just returned from my final passagiatta around the city. I am in the process of finishing off my final bottle of wine!!
The city looks amazing, it really does. There is something so pretty about a Northern Hemisphere Christmas.
I have enjoyed the weekend. On Saturday I went to the Medieval Museum (which I had neglected to do until now), it was great, I then had lunch in one of ‘my’ restaurants (Bucca di Manzano, Rose). Then I took myself off to see the Burattini a Bologna which is a traditional puppet show…the Punch and Judy of Italy and closely related to the puppets we saw in Lyon. That was fun but I felt like a fish out of water with all these kids and their parents. It was in Italian but I could understand a bit given that it was pitched at 6 year olds.
Then I had a gorgeous day yesterday. One of my friends from Italian classes, Jiao, and his beautiful Italian wife Marta, took me to a Palazzo in the country call Palazzo Albergati. This beautiful Palazzo puts on a most sumptuous lunch one Sunday a month. It was an incredible meal in amazing surroundings. Needless to say I acquitted myself brilliantly, eating the wonderful traditional Bolognese winter/ christmas fare to excess. The desserts had to be seen (and eaten) to be believed. So I could barely move when we left after a tour of this amazing palace…a mini Versaille hidden in the Bolognese countryside. On the way home Fabrizia rang to say she and Giancarlo wanted me to come to dinner. Being the resolute person that I am I rose to the occasion and went and ate another meal with Giancarlo and Fabrizia and a Romanian friend of theirs. You would have been proud of me…or horrified as the case may be!!
The good thing out of all that is that Giancarlo is going to pick me up in the morning to take me to the station which rescues me from the walk to the station with 2 cases + extras(however I manage to take everything). My next worry is actually getting onto and off the train heaving the cases. This is the biggest worry travelling for such an extended period. Fortunately I can leave some stuff with Chris in order to be able to actually get on the plane to London.
Next missive will definitely be from London.