Hi Friends,

After breakfast on Day 2 in Bologna, we decided to go to the town center and explore. We set out without a buggy with Matthew on my hubby’s back in our Stokke harness. On the way to our hotel, we saw that the town was not very buggy friendly with a lot of loose stones and cobblestones so we did not want to struggle with pushing it around and getting frustrated. Matthew absolutely loved the novelty of this and even managed to fall asleep when it was time for his nap.

One of the first things that we noticed was that the town is full of arched walkways, so almost never have to walk in the direct sunlight and can stay out all day long if you wanted to.

Initial feeling about Bologna was that someone has immersed us in the ancient Roman past, the architecture was so beautiful, each building with its unique design and character.

Of course, after a couple of hours walking Alexei decided that he has enough and was asking to go back to the hotel. In his words, he was ‘hot and bored’. Luckily, we reached the central Plaza of Bologna ( Piazza Maggiore) and found out that there was a Disney store there. As both boys were given some spending money by grandparents for their holiday we decided to go in and see if they wanted to get anything.

Usually, Disney stores are quite similar. What I liked about this store, in particular, was that they displayed lovely Disney pictures, with what looked like original drawings of different characters. Alexei also enjoyed exploring a room that was set up as a playroom.

The boys chose a toy each, Alexei getting a remote-controlled Jackson Storm car and Matthew loved a soft Winnie the Pooh Kanga & Roo toys.

After that, we had lunch in the conveniently located McDonalds in proximity to the Disney store and went to see the  Piazza Maggiore. There we saw a very interesting Neptune fountain with quite unique statues.

This Neptune fountain, at the time when the fountain was built, symbolized the dominance of the Pope Pio IV, and reflection of the political power that the Roman church had at that time. Just as the Neptune was the ruler of the seas, Pope was the master of the World

Next, we went to see the famous Two Towers of Bologna, according to Wiki, there were over 180 of these towers in Bologna in the 12th-13th Century. The reason for so many towers is unknown, however, it is speculated that the richest families used the for offensive/defensive purposes.

After the heat was starting to get to us, so we decided to get ice-cream in Gelateria right beside the towers. I have to say that it was not the nicest I had in Italy and the price reflected its location.

After this, Alexei has had enough and as it was getting quite late we decided to pop into Coop near our hotel and just have a small snack in the hotel instead of proper dinner as none of us really wanted to eat anything heavy.

By the way, there are a lot of Coop shops in Bologna, so you can always get any essentials that you might need. We did find though that the prices for things such as nappies and wipes were very high, but the prices for food items were quite reasonable.

I hope you are all having a great day today!