Palazzo della Mercanzia, the seat of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Agriculture and Crafts in Bologna.
I basically did not have a lot of time. If I had to go up the almost 100-metre height tower, for sure it will take me some time to reach the top. I was not in the mood. Well scratch that. I was lazy. Pure lazy haha! It can happen and it did during my time in Bologna.
If it makes salvaging my reputation any better, I did climb up the tower in Modena. So I guess my laziness was an isolated on-the-spot case.
But I did some reading about the towers and I found out that the city of Bologna was actually your skyscraper kind of city back in the medieval times. This is what Bologna looked like before:
Quite impressive and amazing huh?
The story goes that as the city prospers every rich family felt the need to show off their riches. So they built towers. The higher the tower, the better. You are richer. You have more power. It’s a symbol of success. It really is not so far away from the – ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ thing, right?
Because of safety reasons, and I guess a decline in the economy, many towers were demolished in the following years and centuries. There are only a few left in Bologna now and the two famous towers are the Asinelli Tower and Garisenda Tower, standing side by side each other.
In Bologna, I walked around a lot and I also managed to take a lot of pictures. I mean, what can I do? I have a trigger happy hand and a versatile point-and-shoot pocket camera that I employed each time.
Please do have fun looking at the pictures. These were taken on separate days. I hope you enjoy them.
The Two Towers: Garisenda (smaller) and Asinelli (taller) towers.
Piazza della Mercanzia.
Piazza di Porta Ravengnana.
The interior of Palazzo della Mercanzia.
Piazza Luigi Galvani with his statue in the middle.
Arch hallways are common in Bologna.
Peek to Piazza Maggiore.
Banco di Roma bronze clock.
Arch vaulted and pillared pedestrian hallways.
Having coffee at Vini & Sapori on Via Augusto Righi.
English speaking for expats newspaper in Bologna.
Outdoor corridor cafes in Bologna.
Travel Period: May 2016
Destination: Bologna (Emilia-Romagna), Italy
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Happy Travels! Enjoy Life =)
All pictures were taken by a point and shoot pocket camera or iPhone.