Bad Lucca and 'Spag bol' musings

We docked in Livorno at first light and were parked-up in a sosta in the outskirts of Lucca by mid-morning. 

We have been here previously, but many years ago. Just how long ago became a matter of some debate. We concluded it was in all likelihood July 1998, when we stopped off in Lucca briefly as we headed for Livorno to catch the ferry to Corsica - all five of us packed into an overloaded Ford Galaxy complete with a big-top sized Cabanon frame tent on the roof rack and kids bikes dangling off the back, Matthew aged 11, Sarah 10, and Laura just turned 3.

We ended up in Lucca partly because there was a handy car park next the town walls but also because I wanted to look at the facade of the cathedral. It's a stunning example of Pisan style medieval architecture. Google it and this comes up:

The Romanesque façade is striking for its asymmetry: one arch of the portico, built in the 12th century, is smaller due to the pre-existing bell tower , 60m high and equipped with 7 bells. The small loggias superimposed on sculpted and historiated columns, created starting in 1204 by Guidetto da Como, feature two-tone marble inlays. The three portals are framed by a rich sculptural decoration, among which the Cycle of the Months , the Stories of Saint Martin and the two masterpieces by Nicola Pisano, the Deposition and the architrave with the Annunciation , the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi , stand out. On the pillar next to the bell tower is the fascinating sculpture of the labyrinth , a symbol linked to the theme of pilgrimage and therefore also present in other churches located along the Via Francigena.

This is all true, but it fails to mention exactly why Pisan style Romanesque and Gothic churches look so startling. Due to the Carrara quarries being a few miles to the north the facades of Pisan style churches use a mix of the place's translucent marble, mainly pure white, but striped in black or dark green. It gives many of the edifices an odd giant liquorice Allsort look. The Cathedral in Lucca is unusually restrained - less stripey than most.

Anyway, my attempts to appreciate this architectural gem has a chequered history. Back in 1998 with three kids' needs to prioritise I was only ever going to get a couple of minutes to look at the cathedral's facade. However, I planned to record a lot of it with my camcorder and look at the details later. I was about thirty seconds into filming when I felt a sharp jab between the shoulder blades and a heavily accented voice, reminiscent of Herr Flick from 'Alo Alo' uttered a phrase destined to go down in family lore, "YOU ARE STANDING IN MY PHOTOGRAPH!".

I turned around. To continue the 'Alo Alo' theme, the angry looking man facing me was somewhat rotund, more Colonel Erik von Strohm than Herr Flick, but lacking the Colonel's avuncular disposition. My antagonist was short, fat, very red faced, wearing voluminous khaki shorts and a matching floppy sun hat. I did what every upstanding Englishman would do - apologised profusely, beat a hasty retreat, then fulminated at length afterwards.

If you were a boy in the early 1960s it was difficult to avoid exposure to anti-German sentiment - films like '633 Squadron' or 'The Guns of Navarone' or 'War comics' like Victor and Hornet that featured gritty looking SS infantrymen shouting Achtung! Achtung! in gothic script while lobbing grenades at plucky Tommies. Of course I moved on, and became a Europhile, a fully fledged Guardian reading remoaner. However, I never forgot the lost facade of Lucca cathedral. One day, I vowed, I would come back.

...And here we were, a mere twenty minute walk from the place. The weather forecast was quite dodgy, threatening thundery showers turning onto longer spells of rain. Undetered, we donned cagouls and headed for the city centre. The Centro Istorico maybe awash with architectural gems, but Lucca's outskirts are a tad run down. We were less than 20 metres from the van when we were approached by a guy asking for money. We don't carry loose change these days and pay contactless for most things. The guy was having none of this, he became very persistent and followed us for a while. It spooked us. On the positive side we found a pharmacy and bought some contact lens cleaner. The assistant was very helpful, comparing Gill's almost empty bottle with the ones on the shelf make sure it was the correct type. We felt better after that.

As the old city gates came into view in the distance the threatened thundery downpour arrived. It was torrential, sending us scurrying into a doorway for shelter. It was the kind of rain that bounced off the pavement coming at you from both above and below. We carry shower proof cagoules, not all- weather wear. We decided to head back to the van during a lull. It was the right decision, the rain continued all afternoon. So I never did get to fully appreciate Lucca cathedral's thirteenth century statuary, after having been so rudely interrupted 27 years ago. Some things are simply simply fated not to happen.

Next day we exited Lucca via a Conad and took the A14 motorway heading for Bologna. The route follows the Arno valley, past Prato and Pistoia, before skirting Florence; then it heads north through the mountains towards Bologna. It's a great drive.

We booked into the Citta di Bologna site for two nights, just enough time to do some laundry and visit the city in the afternoon. Our plan was simple, exactly the same as what we did the last time we were here two years ago - lunch at the Osteria del Orso, a walk through the ancient centre to the Cremeria San Stefano then make our way back to the bus stop outside the station via Cremeria Cavour.

There are dozens of beautiful cities in Italy, but for us Bologna is our favourite, and for me, one of the most alluring cities I have ever visited, up there with Lisbon, Donostia, Valencia, Singapore and Kyoto, all urban environments where people come first.

Bologna's ancient arcaded streets are hauntingly beautiful, just crumbling enough and graffiti daubed to save them from being soullessly picturesque.

We arrived at the Osteria del Orso a few minutes before noon, along with more than a dozen others keen to avoid the much longer queue that forms half an hour or so later when workers and students on their lunch break pile-in.  

This small, unassuming restaurant is world famous as a place that serves up an authentic version of one of Bologna's signature dishes - Tagliatelle al Ragu. Italian emigrants reinvented it in New York during the 1920s as Spaghetti Bolognese and half a century later a bowlderised version morphed into 'spag bol', which bears no resemblance whatsoever to the original dish.

There are recipes online for 'speedy Spaghetti Bolognese', however the origin dish, Tagliatelle all Ragu, is a good example of what food journalist, Carlo Petrini, dubbed 'slow food'.

Slow doesn't just refer to the cooking time, though in the case of Tagliatelle al Ragu prepping the soffritto that forms the basis of the sauce, then simmering it on a low heat for a couple of hours does mean that the dish isn't something easily 'rustled up'. Slow food also showcase fresh local produce, cucina povera - traditional dishes that transform basic ingredients into something delicious though skilled cookery. It's a philosophy as much as a cuisine - that eating is something to be celebrated and savoured, foundational for a happy life.

I reckon it is our third visit to Osteria del Orso. This time we happened upon another, quite startling, way that it typifies Bologna, the restaurant boasted a recently radicalised toilet.

Startling yes, but Bologna is unashamedly left leaning, with a big student population probably one of Europe's most socialist cities, not just reds under the bed, but also hiding in the cubicle!

Political graffiti abounds - but I guess it's worthwile reflecting just how long this has been a feature of Italian culture; The Romans were fond of scrawling their outrage on walls. Today in Bologna most recent graffiti was predominantly pro-Palestinian and anti-IDF, but mixed with other stuff, "sex work is real work", lots of references to Meloni, Italy's small but feisty right-wing PM. Predictably every mention was prefixed by the same expletive, signalling disapprobation, I suspect, not concupiscence!

It does raise the question about freedom of expression in the UK - it seems a little strange that elderly ex-vicars are being arrested as supporters of terrorism for holding up small signs saying 'I support Palestine Action', and even a collection of common nouns - 'from the river to the sea' - can be deemed anti-Semitic. Surprisingly, given Italy's right wing government, freedom of expression does not appear to be curtailed in quite the same way as at home.

We had plenty of time to take in the graffiti fest as we headed from the restaurant to Cremeria Santo Stefano, our favourite gelateria in the world. It's about a fifteen minutes walk through ancient arcaded streets on the eastern edge of Bologna's historic centre. Over the last three weeks we have almost managed a daily gelato fix.

We speculated whether Santo Stefano would remain predominant in the face of all this competition.

The verdict, yes, the Cremeria's gelato is a little more complex, the flavour combos more imaginative than most, but not by much.

The runner up in our best gelateria ever competition also happens to be in Bologna too. Cremeria Cavour is close to Bologna's main square, next to a swanky mall full of designer shops. It must feature on TripAdvisor or Lonely Planet because there's always a multi-national queue.

 It's very good too, maybe a little less experimental than San Stefano, more mainstream gelato elevated.

We had forgotten how crowded the area around the market gets at on a Saturday afternoon. By this time we were somewhat footsore too. But there's always something happening around Piazza Maggiore. Today's entertainment consisted of a troupe of drummers - I couldn't figure out the style, but it certainly had a samba vibe about it.

From here back to the bus stop outside the main train station is about 1.7km. up Bologna's main shopping street, Via dell' Indipendenza. It was slow going, the usual crush of Saturday shoppers made worse by the fact that much of the road was one big building site. Bologna is investing in an urban tram network as part of a decarbonisation plan.

The bus station was chaotic too, temporarily disorganised, additional stops added due to the road works. It was difficult to know if the bus back to the campsite departed from the same one we had arrived at. I decided to consult Chatgpt. AI was incredibly impressive at explaining in precise detail exactly why it didn't know either. 

We decided to take a more anthropological approach, searching amongst the crowds for a gaggle that looked a bit like us - older, not Italian, wearing outdoorsy camperish attire. This proved to be a more effective approach, we joined a likely looking group by stand D - we were all eyeing each other up (isn't that the tall German man with a bald head and rimless glasses from two pitches down?). A rotund Dutch women provided a measure of certainty, she was clutching the city plan supplied by the campsite. The bus duly turned up, and that was that, another year's travels almost ended -  once again, arrivaderci Bologna.