“Did you tell the man in the trattoria you came from us,” asked my happy receptionist in the hotel the next morning. “Ehm, no, I didn’t,” I said regretfully. “Oh, that’s too bad,” he said. “He would have given you a hug. We’re friends, you see.” Too bad, indeed. The man in the restaurant had been so lovely, I certainly wouldn’t have minded a hug. I told the receptionist how delicious the potato gnocchi with chickpea cream and octopus had been–in truth, it had restored me. Then I asked him after his Sunday. “This afternoon, it’s going to be me and my bike,” he said, as if he was talking about someone he loved very much. I wished him all the best and took off, full of faith, to Bologna.
Bologna wasn’t the same as Ancona. The city centre was crowded, many tourists, people making music. It was alive at simply too much for me. I could have been reborn in Ancona every day for a week, before I would have been up for the liveliness of Bologna. Once I had arranged myself a hotel, I went for some sightseeing in the city centre. It was sunny and very cold. I skipped out on the hours long queue for the most famous lasagne bolognese and joined the queue for the most famous mortadella sandwich. There was something fairy tale like about this place, contrasting sharply with the commerce of tourism. I didn’t know what to make of it.
When I woke up the next morning, peace had returned. I decided first to get myself some breakfast. Walking through the same streets I had passed the day before, now early on a Monday morning, Bologna opened up to me. I went into the church for a little bit, passed the beautiful old buildings with their porticos and frescos. I saw people’s daily routines, walking their dogs, rushing to work, buying a newspaper. In a supermarket, I bought myself a banana and I finished the last figs and nuts I had still left from Greece. Now I was ready to find myself a nice espresso bar for a decent cappuccino.
It must still have been before eight in the morning, but just around the corner of my hotel, on a little square behind the most frequented part of the city centre, I stumbled upon a bar that was already open and looked very friendly, stylish, but not pretentious. To my joy, there was a chalk drawing on the wall of lady and the tramp eating spaghetti–Italian humour–and a beautiful bar with cornetti, sandwiches and some dolci. I ordered a cappuccino and sat down opposite the bar, taking in the atmosphere of the place and the people entering.
Like the bookshop, this bar too seemed to be a bit of a community centre, friends and colleagues meeting for their espresso before they got off to work, an old man reading his newspaper, a couple having breakfast before they would start the rest of their day. The place felt so alive, so warm–it was freezing inside with gas prices still soaring–so tied together. I noticed something I hadn’t seen often in the Netherlands and had come across several times now, both in Italy and in Greece: the natural intermingling of generations. It made me feel as if I was watching a big occasional family, tied together by this little espresso bar and the barista, fulfilling dutifully his job of beloved host and reliable cousin.
Maybe me and Bologna would make up some day, but for now, I decided to travel on. I booked an Airbnb in Verona, that would give me a comfortable train connection to Vienna the next morning. My dream of travelling by train through the Alps would come true.
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