Our dear friend, Bella (Dolly Goolsby) is on the go again, this time in Italy. She has graciously allowed us to republish her travel blogs. Enjoy!
Yes, we are still having fun. On Sunday, we went by train to the town of Forli, which is about one hour east of Bologna, on the way to the sea. Our friends, Marco and Fabrizio live there, and we had planned to meet them for lunch that day.
We got to the train station, bought our tickets, and while waiting for our train, we started seeing the word, “Cancelled”, appear after some of the trains, primarily the bigger, faster trains to Milano, Roma, Firenze. But also after some of the local trains. Hmm! Well, those of you who have studied Italian, or have traveled in Italy, might remember the word “scopiero”. Yes, the train system was on strike, but as always, the strikes last 24 hours, and some trains still run. We were lucky. Our train finally arrived, although 15 minutes late. We got on, along with many other people and headed east.
Marco and Fabry were waiting for us. They knew about the strike, and were happy that we had made it. First, they took us on a walking tour of the town. Forli is really A very pretty city. The buildings, for the most part, are newer and more modern, but there was one church that had been built in 12th century, and the Duomo was also quite old.
Marco acted as our tour guide through the city. He is studying English, and wanted a chance to use it. He is doing very well….much better than I am doing with Italian. Fabry pretends he doesn’t know English, but he know quite a bit. We had so much fun, talking and laughing with them.
The guys had planned for us to eat at a traditional restaurant, but it was closed; however, we did have a nice lunch at a small cafe, then went to their apartment. We had a lovely visit, we got to see some of their travel pictures, including a DVD of their trip to Madagascar. Very interesting. They have traveled a lot, to places I have never been, such as Zanzibar, Argentina, Grand Canyon in Colorado (I am embarrassed to say I have never seen that.)
We went for a walk in the big park, then we had to see if the trains were running, as we needed to get back to Bologna. We thought the strike was ending at 4:00 p.m.,but it didn’t end until 9:00 p.m. Our train arrived in Forli 10 minutes late and was already packed to the rafters with people returning from the sea coast. We had to stand up, shoulder to shoulder with other sweaty people all the way back to Bologna. I was never so happy to have a shower as I was that night!
We had had a full day, and on Monday we left Bologna again, on the same train we had taken on Sunday, but the strike was over and all was well.
Now we are in Rimini, which is on the Adriatic Sea coast. We are just relaxing, eating, drinking, lounging in the sun. I may even have a tan by the time I get home again.
Soon I will have more adventures to write about, but for the next few days, we are going to chill out here in Rimini. And I say, “chill out”, tongue in cheek. It is pretty warm here, but nice breezes. It is nice to finally be able to wear short sleeve t-shirts and capris.
Ciao for now.
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