I know this was the culprit because it was the only thing I had to eat for over 18 hours prior. Anyway despite much protestation Neale dragged me on the plane and for once I paid attention to where the sick bag was! To add insult to injury I had obviously not planned the trip with sufficient research. As it turned out it also happened to be the weekend there was a huge cosmetics trade show in town (hence why there were so many orange people on the plane), and one of the thrice yearly graduation ceremonies from the university. As a result there was very little accommodation available so we ended up in a B & B with shared bathroom facilities. The nightmare continued!

The whole point of the trip was to try all the fabulous food so as green as I was feeling we did venture out. Normally I would have devoured a broth with floating pork meatballs but I only managed one or two much to the disappointment of the proprietor. One thing that was very pleasing was how good our Pork & Pecorino Patties are and something that is very representative of what was on offer in Bologna, albeit separately. It’s at this point I must apologise for no foodie photos but my stomach couldn’t cope. Instead you’ve got a few images of the tallest tower in Bologna which I managed to climb and rather hilariously a shut Irish Pub during the England versus Ireland Rugby match. The pub finally opened after the game and even more bizarrely started playing Michael Bublés Christmas hits – absolutely hilarious!

Despite all of this I fell in love with Bologna. It is a truly beautiful city and the locals seemed lovely and welcoming. I was a little surprised though by the repetitiveness of the menus. All the food we ate was delicious but it reminded me of those state menus you get in other parts of Europe where every local restaurant in a region serves pretty much exactly the same thing. The one thing that did make me chuckle was being told by a local that Bologna is the Venice of the North owing to it’s canal. When we arrived to admire it through a tourist viewing point it was a muddy road!

Whilst I didn’t get to see Bologna’s oldest food market located in the medieval area of the city called ‘Quadrilatero’, Neale, Laura & Lucy came back from their visit with lots of lovely shots just to rub my nose in it, so here are the bits I didn’t see sadly!