Garden

Today was our last full day in Bologna and it was forecasted to be 15 degrees cooler than it has been since we arrived almost a week ago.  It was a perfect day for seeing gardens.  

N decided to stay put so A and I set off with a map and a few destinations in mind.  Last year we walked across town to a beautiful park called Margherita, so we thought we'd head in the other direction this time.  

To reach these parks required us to walk along what A says is the longest arcaded passage in the world, the Via Saragozza.  There was quite a bit of foot traffic even though you can't see it in the photo below.  Shops, cafes, bodegas and apartments make up the majority of what you pass as you walk along under the arches.  Here is one section of what it looks like:

Finally we came to the first park I had mapped out for us.  There are tiny breaks in the arcades with steps going down to the street if you must cross in the middle of a block, which we did.

Across the street we found the iron park entry gate which seemed unassuming enough.  And the gravel path was promising.  

So we walked down the gravel path, flanked by well worn but empty wooden benches.  We had no idea what to expect.  

The building you see directly ahead was not open.  A placard indicated that it may be some sort of history museum.  Other than that the park was deserted mostly.  We climbed up the hill on the right, wound around the side of the building...

....and this is where we found ourselves.

Sometime after stumbling around in a dreamlike state through this forgotten garden, we continued to ascend worn steps that were set into an overgrown hillside.

Benches awaited the weary.

We went higher, past a lone man exercising in a walled grotto overlooking the statues we'd admired on the way up. I don't think I mentioned that our walk or passeggiata was accompanied by a cacophony of cicada.  They were so loud they drowned out the traffic, they drowned out a distant buzz saw and they almost made conversation impossible.  I took several videos of this very atmospheric walk so I will show you when we get home.

We hiked through a meadow of wildflowers to the top of the park where there was a view of a distant hill and of Bologna below us.

It was difficult to leave this park because it was just so insanely beautiful. Evemtually we did and went in search of more amazingness.  The most interesting was this pedestrian bridge, built several hundred years ago.  It is connected to a continuation of the colonnaded walkway which follows a road up a hill or it may be the road follows it. 

You can see in the photo below how the sidewalk slants upward.  People use this as a way to exercise and I can understand why.  It may not seem steep but walking it is very strenuous.  After consulting the map it was determined this was not the direction we'd intended so we turned back which was fine with me as the sun had started to reemerge from the morning cloud cover.

The other parks did not measure up to the first so eventually we headed back to the the apartment, to the deafening song of the cicadas.  I found the shed skin of one on a tree.

A pointed out a bellowing low hanging one close by.

Finally we got to our street, Pietralata.  Here's  a view of it from the top, close to the Sardinian Osteria.

That's where our apartment is near the graffiti, number 20.

Here's the hall.

The steps up to the 3rd floor.

The apartment door.

After resting up for a little while, we ate dinner at this small place that is called Matti della Polenta, "crazies of the polenta" and they were.  We had every manner of polenta.  It was like being stuck on a polenta desert island.

Here is the menu.  We're going to try some of these recipes when we get home.

And here are a few pics of the garden at night because I loved it so much we walked back there after dinner to show it to N: