Bologna: Strikes and Food and Amari

We're currently on to Bologna in our vacation, having arrived last night.

Getting from Bologna Airport to the center of town via taxi sounds like a good idea. But not so much when:

• There's been recent serious flooding;
• There turns out to be a major ceramics festival in town (we had no idea), so there are tons of tourists arriving; and
• There is a major taxi strike this evening.

We spent 10-15 minutes in the immensely long queue waiting for taxis, with none apparently arriving, before noticing the eensy-weensy hand-written sign near the front saying "taxi strike". And of course Uber was completely useless, since everyone was trying to use it to get around the strike.

Thank heavens our AirBnB hosts graciously came and rescued us from the Bologna Central train station -- we had managed to find our way there via the monorail, but we weren't looking forward to dragging our luggage a fair walk to find the bus.

Anyway...

Tonight was a food tour that we had scheduled. Suffice it to say, Delicious Bologna know their stuff, and it was a hoot, getting to try lots of local fare (including real Mortadella, with a talk on how it compares with the stuff we find at home, and the weird but delightful Ciccioli), get introduced to Lambrusco in its genuine non-sucky form, try the weird but wonderful local spinach-based green lasanga and tortollini in brodo, and finish off with gelato (me being me, I went for a combination of the Coffee with Sambucca and Beer flavors).

He was also careful to show us all of the important tourist sites and fill us in on the major history and legends, including the battle between the city and the Vatican over their overly-large cathedral (it is apparently now a point of pride that, many centuries later, the thing is never going to be finished), and the controversy around Neptune's penis. European history is just weirder and more fun than American sometimes.

The whole thing was a blast, and it was lots of fun chatting with folks in the tour group, who were from all over (three of us from the US, plus a couple of guys from Ireland, a woman from Australia, a guy from Paris, a couple from Vancouver, and so on). Highly recommended.

Of course, I took the opportunity to inquire about local Amari, because, y'know, Amaro geek here, and was directed to a lovely bar, Camera a Sud. (Where our tour guide eventually wound up taking a seat at the bar a while after we arrived, which helped solidify the sincerity of the recommendation.)

Tonight's exploration: Amaro Salento Amarissimo. Intense, solidly bitter, with a strong anise edge. (In general, I get the sense that they aren't afraid of anise flavor in these parts.) Good stuff, although the anise is probably a bit more than I would usually go for. We're likely to return to Camera a Sud -- they had several other local Amari I need to try, including the intriguing scotch-based Blu.

On the weirder and more commercial side: I happened to stop in a nearby grocery store this afternoon, and just for giggles picked up a bottle of Amaro China from, no kidding, Martini. (The people who make the ubiquitous adequate-but-not fabulous vermouths that you can find everywhere in the States.) And y'know -- it's actually not bad. It's ridiculously cheap (under 10 Euros per bottle), and I've had far worse. I wouldn't say it's great amaro, but it's entirely acceptable, and far better than some of the crap I find at home; in terms of bang for the buck it's really quite impressive. So I may see whether it can be obtained at home.

Also in terms of beverages: it's wonderful being in a country where not only is Sanbitter quite cheap, but there are lots of similarly-inexpensive competitors. (I wound up picking up a ten-pack of the official Campari and Soda.) But I do still miss Spain's Bitter Kas, which is quite similar, even cheaper, and doesn't involve nearly as much glass waste.

We'll see where we go next: we now have a couple of unscheduled days to eat our way across Bologna and hopefully not get squashed flat by the tourists here for the ceramics festival.