Next three days were in Bologna.

Highlight was getting dinner with former student and friend Paul who is now living in Modena and working for the Ferrari Formula 1 racing team - how cool is that. I also realized over dinner that I've known Paul now for over 20 years - man, I'm getting old.

Bologna's usually a few degrees cooler than Rome but overall the mercury kept rising so outside wasn't particularly comfortable.

On the plus side, all the streets in the center city have porticos and this helped a lot. There was almost always a shady side of the street where it felt much cooler. I was still dripping with sweat all day but the porticos definitely helped.

For me, other than the food (which I could also say for Rome), the highlight was probably the Basilica di Santo Stefano. It's what I'd call a Frankenbuilding, that is a building made from multiple buildings. I always found those pretty neat. Seems that there are a lot of bookstores that are Frankenbuildings - Powell's in Portland, City Lights in San Fran, and E. Shavers in Savanah. Even the old and now closed main branch of Barnes and Nobles on fifth avenue in New York was two buildigns smooshed together.

In this case it started as one church and over the years, additional churches were stitched (built) on. Really fascinating.

There was also a little museum.

We also visited the Basilica di San Petronio which boasts the worlds largest sundial that's basically a line with markings running from the entrance to the altar area.

This was in the city's main square. Also on the square is the Salaborsa Library , under which there are some neat ruins.

An Neptune.

We were told by a local that Maserati trident logo was taken from this statue.

A short walk away was one of the original buildings from the University of Bologna - the oldest continuously operating university in the world where we saw an original operating theater and a room where Rossini premiered one of his works.

To round out our trip, we also visited their Jewish museum, their museum of music which had interesting instruments, old scores, and more as well as the Museo Davia Bargellini which was a cool little free museum featuring "industrial art."

Super hot but a good few days.

Now off to the Rossini festival in Pesaro.