June 12 - June 14 Bologna

The heatwave that has swamped this part of italy continues unabated, it gets to about 40 on most days but the humidity and the breezelessness of it all make it hard to deal with. Despite this i have managed to do more wandering but as the days passed this has become rather aimless. There has been some interesting indulging in the food and bevvy departments however.

The highlights were, a simple gnocci gorgonzola, with walnuts, a single layer of home made gnocci coated with a thick gorgonzola sauce covering 2 thirds of a large plate with a sprinkling of parsley and basil scattering the portion of the plate closest to its consumer, marvellous,.. followed this up with salsicce grilliata, which translats as grilled snags,.. but these were magic, char grilled and hefty.

Another massive highlight in both the financial and flavour stakes was a roasted scallop dish i had at the NU Big scallops roasted in shell with basil and a sprinkling of cheese,.. biggest scallops i have ever had which is usually a bad sign but these were full and flaboursome,.. there were only 3 on the plate and the pire was 19 euro... ouch.

Also at the NU managed to scvoff down a carpaccio of octopus, ultra thin slices of pussy surrounded by bolied taters, olive oil and balsamic on the table and lemon and basil in the dish, have never had octopus served this way, probably doesnt beat several slabs of the stuff on the barbie with a six pack of beer but it was excellent. Also knocked back a Bologna specialty their torta riso, which was nothing like i expected, mor elike a flan, savoury with a dusting of icing sugar, tasted very greek, didnt mention this to my host. As this was my last day in bologna i bid farewell to Toni and his crew at Nu Hotel, top bloke all round, he plans to head down to australia and gave me his email address. Toni spent 20 years in France and the menu and his knowledge show it, has friends in noumea and knows he will visit them one day and promised to make the journey further south, i convinced him to stop over in melbourne for food and wine once he had gotten sick of the harbour bridge and the sights of sydney.

Tonight bologna is holding a massive concert in piazza maggiore along with fireworks at 21:00, I told them not to go to too much trouble, but they insisted .. these crazy italians.

Tomorrow its off to Firenze for at least a few days, as it happens my roomy from Urbania Ben just so happens to be in Florence for a few days, which is good for several reasons, but mainly it gives me another chance to see the guy before we move continents and also the fact that he knows Firenze very well hasnt escaped me, wouldnt mind setting up base there for a few weeks whilst i explore the area.