St. Patrick's Day fell on a Saturday this year and since I was looking to keep busy I did some Google searching to see if there might be an Irish festival here in Italy. There wasn't an abundance of results but I did find that there is a large festival in Bologna which is only a few hours south by train. A pub called the Celtic Druid claimed to be having a large St. Patty's Day party so this looked promising.
I have many fond memories from past St. Patrick's Day celebrations so this was more than just finding something to do. It was also a tradition I have shared with some of my closest girlfriends. Caryn, one of my best friends, has a birthday just a few days after March 17th and when she celebrated her 30th we did it up big. Six of us girls met up in NYC and spent the weekend in Manhattan. We waded through a slushy snowstorm in Chinatown in search of knock-off handbags. We went to Tao for Caryn's birthday dinner and then danced in the VIP section of a club with non other than Jodie Sweetin from Full House! ;) The finale was a pub crawl on St. Patty's Day which started at noon and went until the wee hours of the morning. We definitely experienced New York and rang in Caryn's 30th year in style.
But back to the present......
My new friend Maggie and I hopped on the train that Saturday morning to find this Irish festival and see a new city. The strange thing was that neither of us could find anything in our travel books about the city of Bologna. Of course we had heard of bolognese sauce but that was the extent of our knowledge. So we walked out of the train station and went with the flow of traffic to the center of the city. What we found was this beautiful and very interesting old city. Bologna suffered considerable bomb damage during World War II but it still remains one of the most well-preserved medieval cities in Europe. Bologna's historic center is Europe's second largest at 350 acres. The city is famous for it's portico's and we walked along many of these throughout the day. At one time there were over 200 towers constructed during the medieval era and now 20 of these remain. Also, Bologna is home to the oldest known university in the world, the University of Bologna founded in 1088.
As luck would have it, the Saturday market was in full swing and markets in Italy are always fun. Plus I was able to pick up a scarf (with green in it) for 1 euro! After the market we made our way through the historic center and found some great side streets with adorable restaurants. One street in particular was the picture of what you would think a typical Italian street should look like. Narrow, tables outside with red checkered table cloths and musicians playing traditional Italian music. Probably my favorite street in Italy so far. We saw the two most famous towers, one of which is leaning. What we did not see were people decked out in green or any signs of a festival. There were a lot of carabinieri and polizia standing around in groups so we decided to ask them if they could point us towards the Celtic Druid. The first group were just in town as added security for a political demonstration so they were unable to help us. The second group we came across gave us directions to an area just outside the historic center. It was a beautiful day so we took off on a long walk. We ended up nowhere near anything that looked like a festival or an Irish pub. Maggie was eventually able to get an Internet signal on her iPhone and we found the pub.....back in the direction that we started. But even the iPhone didn't quite get us there. We walked to the OTHER side of the historic center, through another long set of portico's and then decided to ask a young couple that were walking by. They knew exactly where it was and pointed us down another street. Third time was a charm and we found the Irish pub located down a tucked-away side street. There were tons of green-clad people inside and outside the pub. There was no Irish festival per se but the mood was festive enough. We fought our way inside and ordered a pint. Those standing close by us could hear us speaking English and asked where we were from. Everyone was quite friendly.
After an hour or so at the pub we decided it was time for some dinner. We found a little restaurant nearby and I ordered what do you think? Pasta bolognese! It was delicious. We had a great day...even without the Irish festival and discovered a wonderful city. I definitely want to go back and have dinner again. This time I'll take my husband and we'll sit outside on the romantic street with the live Italian music. :)
