I meet the daughter in #Bologna. The hotel I booked that suggested it was in the centre, isn't. It's like a Fawlty Towers scenario. The man at the front desk is ancient but has dyed his hair jet black and the few bits he's missed, he's coloured in with black texta. He's wearing a bright brocade waistcoat and a ruby red bow tie.
We walk into the centre which is a good twenty minutes away, making our way through the colonnaded arcades. I seem to see things differently through the lens of depression. I've been here before but have never fully appreciated the beauty of this city of over 38 kilometres of porticoes, each section painted in different colours - ochres, reds, salmon pinks, with different patterned tiles underfoot in each of the sections. Once this city had canals running through it that took ships from here to Venice in the Middle ages, utilising a hydraulic system of canals and locks that worked up until the 18th century. Now there's only one canal left. The daughter takes me to an amazing cafe that specialises in croissants with different fillings. The pistachio one is to die for.
We're here to go to a concert. I leave the details of how to get there to the daughter. The tickets have to be printed out. We go down and ask the man of the black hair to do so. He has no idea. He doesn't speak any English. Luckily the daughter has some Italian. He eventually tells her to come around and do it herself but she doesn't know the log in details. Eventually someone else turns up who does and we finally have the tickets in hand. We meet up with her Uni friends and get an Uber. To the middle of nowhere. It looks like an aircraft hanger. The Uber drops us off and points vaguely to a distant place. We walk through a field, hop over a fallen tree and finally see a crowd of people. This is where Passenger is performing. Why? Why would anyone come here to serenade a small crowd of Italians and the odd Aussie? The daughter thinks she has informed me that it is a stand up concert. I am sure she has neglected to tell me this. Passenger is running an hour late, he probably couldn't find it either and has been dropped in the middle of the field as we were. In the end I sit on the ground, my newly operated upon back demanding it. He's worth it as always. I've never known an artist to be able to lock in a crowd as well as Passenger.
Getting back is another story. We follow a crowd, they say there are taxis to be had. There aren't. We ring one, they say they will come. They don't. We follow people who say there are buses. We walk a long way. There are none. Eventually the daughter sees a taxi, steps out and hails it like in a movie, set in New York. We drop the girls at the station to get a train back to Modena and we are dropped safely to the hotel. We hear that the last train to Modena was cancelled. The girls had to get an expensive taxi back as Bologna station is not the sort of station you want to hang around after midnight. Adventures.
Porticoes and doorknobs.
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