Bologna: San Luca to the Nutelleria

Last week, we traveled to Bologna, where we toured the synagogue and where the Jewish ghetto used to be. Then we had a wonderful group lunch at a very nice restaurant. After all of this, some people decided to leave and go back to Florence, and others wanted to go shopping. Since neither of these activities appealed to me, I asked the Bologna expert, Randall, what else I had to see in the city. He helped me figure out how to reach the church of San Luca.

This church is gorgeous. It is at the top of a hill/mountain and from it, I could see the entire city. It was a beautiful view. Something I found interesting was that there were sand hills in the distance. I always wonder how these sand dunes come to be in an area not near the ocean or the beach. Inside the church was also beautiful. It was completely silent; I did not even want to unzip my backpack to reach for my camera or sketchpad. As quietly as I could, I took out my sketching paper and began to sketch a hanging light. It was in a beautifully ornamented holder, and it looked like the light had a red box over it, giving off a dim red color. It reminded me of the eternal light that Jews keep lit in every sanctuary, except that there were several of them hanging from the church ceiling. I wonder if their origin was in the Jewish eternal light, or if it has absolutely nothing to do with the Jews and is simply there for decoration. As I began to sketch, one of the church people (fathers? priests? I do not know) came over to see what I was drawing. He seemed quite happy that I chose to sketch something in the church which to him was so dear. He smiled, and although we could not communicate in words, I felt that we did communicate.

When I was done inside the church, there was only one way to get down the mountain. OK, there were more ways, other roads, but this way was the best way to walk. It was a long series of porticoes, which led all the way down the mountain. The entire time I was surrounded by green, with a few peaks of a view of the city through the mass of trees. I sat on one of the portico walls, and read for a while. It was extremely relaxing and necessary to spend this time by myself, and I enjoyed my trek down the mountain.



I returned to the center of the city on a bus. When I arrived, I knew what I wanted. Randall had previously pointed out an excellent place to eat a snack, called the Nutellaria. It is exactly what it sounds like. It was a place devoted to all food with nutella. They had nutella crepes, pizzas, shakes, really anything you could ever want. I decided on a nutella dough triangle, that is really the only way I can explain it. For the records sake, I will just say, it was worth every Euro.