Back from Bologna
 

Back from the Veneto and Bologna. had a great time, not surprising.
I was expecting to be disappointed in Bologna after hearing all the hype but truly the people there obviously love their food and all meals were terrific there and not necessarily bank breaking. One can eat well anywhere for 100 euros a head, but to have an excellent 3 course meal at a regular trattoria for 18 euros is harder to do. Boy I am still drooling over the perfect tagliatelle with butter and proscuitto I had. Will start making fresh pasta again. I hear there's a pasta making machine that does the job from the beginning like a bread making machine. Brought back a kilo of aged Parmegianno at a tiny cheese store that looked like the Olsen's store in Little House on the Prairie, no fancy displays, decor or lighting, just big wheels of parmgianno with vintages printed on the sides. Really annoyed that one cannot bring back proscuitto/pancetta/soft cheeses/etc back to the US. I regret not buying a fancily packaged Lindt choc that I had never seen before, but was hoping to find them cheaper than 5 euro a piece. I think that must be Lindt's response to Valrhonna. I am doubtful about chocolate tasting, sounds very pretentious to me, I hate to be a victim (financial) of marketing strategies. Food aside, Bologna is an attractive city to tour as well.
I took a bus to Bassano del Grappa from Vicenza for a half day trip because I hear it is pretty but more importantly porcini mushrooms are picked in the region and it's the season now. We had a great meal of
fresh porcini mushroom soup (no cream no garlic, just pure porcini flaours with a tiny spirnkle of parsley),
bigolli which is like a fresh handmade version of 11/2 inch long spagetti with porcini and olive oil,
a plate of porcini mushrooms cooked in 3 styles- grilled, sauteed with garlic and onions, and tempura- we liked the grilled version best tagliatelle with mushroom and duck pieces in olive oil and very little bit of cream. I noticed that garlic was conspicously absent in most of my meals this trip. The restuarant in BDGrappa was restaurant del Sol. We ate very well at Trattoria del Rosso in Bologna.

Hi t,

Glad you enjoyed Bologna and porcini mushrooms.

((I))

Hi tangwah,
We are going to be in Vicenza for 4 nights in March 2006. We would like to take the bus to Bassano del Grappa. Could you please tell me about the bus schedules to and from Vicenza? What is the cost per person?

Also, did you find any restaurants in Vicenza that you really liked?

Thanks for the info! Laurie

the buses to BDG from Vicenza start at 5 or 6am half hourly till 8.30am, then hourly until evening I think. took an hour despite the short distance as it was a public bus that had many stops along the way. The return trip ran till 8 or 9 pm. it costs 3.50 euro one way from Vicenza to BDG, 1.60 euro from BDG to Marostina (the chess board town). ate a so-so lunch at a restaurant recommended by the Rough Guide. bought food at the PAM supermarket for two dinners, we were a bit "fooded out" after Bologna and Venice.
Hi Ira, porcini mushrooms are great. do you know if anyone has succeeded in growing them in the US?

I will be going to BOlogna in 2 weeks;Did you fly into Milan? If so how did you get to Bologna. Did you do any side trips to PArma, Modena, etc?

Thanks for the info, Tangwah. I was about to write Bassano del Grappa off our list of towns to visit because the train trip is about 1 hour 45 min. But the bus makes more sense.
Thanks again, Laurie

Most welcome,Laurie. You can even make it to Asolo if you have the time. note that the bus is public with no space for big suitcases if you are thinking of more than a daytrip, but medium sized bags can be placed in the overhead compartment. you have to purchase a ticket before getting on, at BDG it's the newsagent at the bus stop, altho at Marostina there was nowhere to buy tickets and the driver accepted our money. And Ristorante Al Sole is at 41/43 via Jacopo Vittorelli.
I flew into Venice, took the train to Bologna, than trained to Verona, followed by Vicenza. If you are taking the intercity or regional train, I would recommend 1st class tix, it got crowded and a little smelly. But on the Eurostar 2nd class was fine for me.

Hi there,
I happen to live in Bassano del Grappa and I can tell you the atmosphere is authentic, beautiful without being touristy, and not so small that you'd get bored. There's a direct train to Venice ( just over one hour) bus to Vicenza ( one hour) 2+1/2 hours to Milan.
The food is great!!! Any info you need, let me know.
I've lived here for 15 years and I'm still lovin' it!
ciao
brezza

tangwah, fresh porcini are available at the farmer's market in SF.

Tangwah, or anyone else, who has been to Bologna --- At which hotel did you stay? My husband and I are planning a trip for May of '06 to include Bologna and Parma, so any hotel or side trip suggestions would be greatly appreciated. As far as dining, we have not had a bad meal at all in Italy, but if you have some favorite restaurant recommendations, we would be happy to give them a try as well.

All this talk about Bassano del Grappa and not a single mention of grappa. It tastes like gasoline to us, but they certainly sell a lot of it there and in beautiful bottles.

Many thanks!

Laurie-- I just got back from a trip to Vicenza and took the bus to Bassano. It was well worth it and very easy, although I would try to get a map of Bassano del Grappa ahead of time. You get the bus at the bus station which is 1/2 block from train station. The bus does take awhile and the afternoon buses are crowded with school kids, but for me that was part of the fun.

Pam,

We were in Bologna for 6 days a few weeks ago, and enjoyed our stay at Hotel Paradise. I did put a trip report on Fodor's but I also just posted the report on SlowTrav, where you can read it with pictures at:

http://www.slowtrav.com/tr/tripreport.asp?tripid=835

We also liked Parma very much. If I can answer any questions for you, please ask.

By the way, the best use for grappa, I think, is just a splash to "correct" your coffee (along with sugar). We got kind of addicted to "caffe corretto" when we were staying at an agriturismo where it was part of the set meal at night.

Nonnafelice - Thank you for the great tip about Hotel Paradise. We read your kinds words about the hotel plus the other reviewers. We are taking your advice and have booked a room for 6 nights next May. It certainly seems like an excellent value.

Additional restaurants or "must dos" would be appreciated. We will continue to be researching. We plan on day trips to Modena, Parma and Ravenna. We found that we enjoyed travelling by bus almost better than the train while in Sicily. Even though these are short trips, are buses available as well. We don't seem to read as much about them in this area.

Thanks again, everyone!!

Hi, Pam,

I can't tell you anything about the buses, but train travel from Bologna is very easy and convenient, and would probably be faster than buses. It's about a 10-minute walk from Hotel Paradise to the train station, and since Bologna is a central spot on the RR lines, there is a train just about every hour or half hour to the three cities you plan to visit. All 3 are great day trips, as you know if you read my report.

I think all the restaurants we ate at are in that report, but my main suggestion would be to get hold of the Slow Food Osterie recommendations. You can buy the book, but you can also get most of them online although only from the Italian web site: www.slowfood.it. Click on "osterie" near the top of the page.

Even if you don't read Italian, you can copy and paste the various restaurants listed. It's kind of painstaking, because you have to click on each one individually. But we definitely had all our best meals in Italy from the Slow Food recommendations and they are generally quite reasonable.

Also, on the Slow Travel web site, read the essay about Bologna on the Travel Notes page:
http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/emilia...na/bologna.htm

Nonnafelice -- Once again, a huge thank you for the information. I love the fact that we will be so close to the train station since we have so many day trips planned.

I mentioned bus travel as I am always concerned about my luggage disappearing if it is not in eyesight which can some times happen on a train if you have to leave your luggage at the end of the car. We have traveled on the trains many times. It often depends on the size of the station as to how "exciting" the trip can be. Of course, we would be so much better off if we knew the language better. While in Rome, we were a wreck as the train track had been changed and we found out only with the assistance of a bilingual individual when the announcement was made over the loudspeaker. If it were not for that person, I don't know where we would have have endend up. With the buses we traveled on in Sicily, my husband watched our luggage going into the storage space below the bus and waited until the hatch was closed. I went ahead on the bus and got our seats. The buses were very nice, not like the city buses. So we were very comfortable. A couple of times, we had a private driver; one time due to it being a "new" holiday which had not as yet been published in guidebooks. There was VERY limited travel that day so we "negotiated" with a cab driver. We traveled from Taormina to Ortygia in 1 hour, 5 minutes. That trip should have taken at least 2 hours. We were on a two lane road with cars passing us by on BOTH sides. My husband calculated into miles that we were traveling approx. 115 mph and part of that time was down the center of the road. I just thank God that we are here today. He was most proud of himself that he made the trip in such a short length of time. We were nuts not to have just gotten out of the car. Oh well, we had a whole extra day in Ortygia.

Now thatwe have retained all of our hotels and airline tickets, we can relax a bit and work on our daily itineraries.

Pam,

I suggest that you go to the trenitalia web site and check on the times of trains for the cities you want to visit. I had printed out a schedule of the morning trains from Bologna before we left, which was very helpful when planning the day trips. Usually we would buy our tickets for the next day’s trip the night before so we didn’t have any delay when we got to the station. You don’t have to buy a ticket for a specific time — just a ticket to the particular city.

I think, if you need help in Bologna, that the people at the hotel would also be able to advise you. We did find when we once went to confirm something in the railroad station information office that the man on duty there did not speak English. Fortunately, I was able to put together enough Italian to get by, but I am far from fluent. Often it seems that the older people, if they have a second language, speak French, whereas the younger ones now learn English in school.

What a hair-raising experience you had in Sicily! I have heard that they have some of the most outlandish driving there. We didn’t experience anything like that in northern Italy!

Oh, one more tip — plan your return walk from the train to the hotel to take you by Stefino’s gelateria. You won’t be sorry!

HOTEL PARADISE "You got to be kidding me" What a dirty dump!!!!My wife and I were in Bologna this past September and stayed at Hotel Paradise. Trust me there was no paradise to be found. This hotel was highly recommended by many travel web-sites. Either they all are use to staying in 1-2 stars or they travel in out houses. The room we had was filthy shower and bathroom floor not cleaned.Worst of all a dirty pair of female underwear stuck in the sheets. We complained and wanted a new room. They said the hotel was booked and the cleaning crew would not be bac until the following day. The front desk would do nothing! In addition the hotel was impossible to find, and the area is off limits to cars and no parking. I would not recommend this hotel whatsoever.

Scottstig, I'm sorry you had such a bad experience at Hotel Paradise. We were there in late September and didn't have any such problems. My husband thought some of the shelves, etc., in the apartment where we stayed could have been better dusted, but certainly the bathroom was cleaned to our satisfaction.

Regarding cars: the hotel is in a car-restricted zone, which makes the city itself much more pleasant for pedestrians. We didn't have a car, so this wasn't an issue for us but our taxi driver from the airport had no problem finding it. I liked the fact that it was on a small street, since it was mostly quiet, yet it was within walking distance of just about anywhere you'd want to go in the city.