The next morning, I struck out on my own, which is fairly usual for when Anara and I travel together. She would rather sleep in and doesn’t need her morning cuppa. I don’t mind, it gives me a chance to catch up with writing some notes and just enjoying a bit of time alone. It’s definitely not hard to find a place serving up coffee every morning. Most cafes are coffee by day and bar by night. Generally, the process is to just plop yourself down at any empty table and someone will be by to take your order at some point. Soon enough, this little beauty showed up to keep me company along with a little dish of pickled veggies. I confess, this was so odd to me and yet I sat there and ate the whole lot. I mean, who doesn’t want a serving of pickled veggies with their morning pastry?

Heading back to the Airbnb, I gathered up Anara and my camera, and we set off for our day’s adventure. We went back to the Main Piazza so we could grab a taxi to The Sanctuary of the Madonna of San Luca, a basilica set high atop a hill overlooking the city of Bologna and another one of the several UNESCO World Heritage Sites we got to see this trip. The drive only took us about 20 minutes and soon we were exploring this lovely small basilica. The present structure was built in 1723, but some form of church or chapel has sat on this hill since 1160 and a particular icon was assigned to it in about 1193.

Entering the main sanctuary is free, but we had decided to pay the nominal fee of about $5 to climb to the top of the sanctuary and do the “Panoramic Terrace” which opened in 2017. From there we were able to see an amazing view of Bologna down below and the surrounding rolling hills around it. The variagated colors and texture of the roof tiles caught my eye as well.

Along the way, there was an empty room about halfway up with a window that looked out. What was absolutely fascinating was the texture on the walls and ceiling. The only thing I can guess is that there were bundles of hay, like thatching, used in its construction at some point. Then maybe plaster was put on top of that? Ideas?

Also, how often do you see graffiti that’s almost 100 years old and from war-time nonetheless?

Compared to the San Petronio in Bologna, this sanctuary was fairly plain, and I only took a couple of photos of the interior.

but what did catch my eye from a photo composition standpoint were the many spiral staircases there.

We made use of the facilities before we headed back down the hill and encountered one of the cycling teams that was practicing for one of the races that use this route. The same Wiki article in the next part talks about that bit of interest as well.

Continued in next chapter…