2017 – Bologna and Modena – Mantova Motor Festival & Maggi Pizza

Travel day, leaving Verona. Our next destination is Sant’Agata in the Bolognese region. The room we are staying in is right above the best pizzeria in Italy – or so they say. Maggi Pizzeria. I’ll be dreaming of pizza all night, I just know it!

Let’s back up the Audi (our rented car) for a few hours and catch the goings on of the day first. We left Verona this morning and headed for Mantova to check out another castle, church, and have lunch. We found great parking and it was free – bonus! However, another car was parked incorrectly right across from where we were having a coffee when we saw a policeman call the tow truck and tow the car away. This all happened while drinking one cup of coffee. The tow truck people can be quick when they need to be!

We walked around the city of Mantova for a bit, checking out the piazzas that seemed to appear around every corner. Some had restaurants and Mercato type booths with clothing or small items for purchase. Others had music and bars. We sat down at one bar/restaurant around 1:00 pm and were told that they didn’t serve lunch until 2:00 pm. Oh well, we moved on, and are we glad we did. 

The restaurant we ended up at was on the street where the cars that were part of the motor show paraded as they came into town. The main piazza was reserved for showing the cars, but they drove through certain streets before parking in the main piazza. What a thrill to see them all pass by. I did feel like we were in a 1950’s movie and that Cary Grant would be driving one of them with Audrey Hepburn seated at his side. 

What we didn’t know is that Mantova was having a special festival today. Do you notice we keep running into special festivals a lot on this trip? Kinda cool actually. This festival includes cars, hundreds and hundreds of them from all over the world! It’s the Mantova Motor Festival. What we saw today was mostly all antiques from racing cars to touring cars and everything in between. Mike and Barry, you would have been out of your minds with this motor show. 

We never did make it to the castle – we were a little distracted with all the cars. But we did peek into a fabulous church where all the walls were painted and in some areas, it looked like 3-D in depth. 

These streets were paved in stones and it was very hard to walk on them, although after awhile it almost felt like you were giving your feet a massage with the rocks coming up through the soles of your shoes. Okay, so I’m trying to make the best of this precarious walking situation. 

The boys would have loved to have stayed for the entire car event today but we needed to get back on the road. Even as we were leaving Mantova there were more antique cars coming to the event. It was fun watching them approach the city. It really did feel like a scene from an old movie. 

On to Sant’Agata! A sleepy little town in the Bologna region. Our BNB is just outside the city limits and is a perfect respite to recoup from my cold. Yes, Ricardo shared his cold with both Antimo and me. But blame the man on the airplane coming over that was right across the aisle from us who was sneezing without covering his mouth. So the count now is two trips to the Farmacia, one shattered/cracked tooth I’m babying, and a compromised credit card we had to cancel. But who’s counting… moving on….

Our BNB entrance.

Our room is very nice and the wood on the ceiling and closets is remarkable quality. The closet doors and the fridge have these unique locks on them. I don’t have room in my purse to take the keys with all the globby ends on them. So I doubt we’ll be locking anything up that can’t fit in the safe. That key is a reasonable size. Our room at the Maggi is like sleeping in an art gallery. The art is original – I think the owner painted them. Some are beautiful, others unique, and then some are just weird.
Richardo, I told you it’s a fresco – those boobs are not real! This is the hallway to our room.Okay, I need some help here. I know one is a toilet and one is a bidet. But why would there be a shower like sprayer thingy next to the toilet when the bidet is right there? I am afraid to ask. Anyone have any ideas? The shower is on the opposite side of the bathroom.

We got settled in our room and went down to dinner early because we were warned that the restaurant fills up quickly and long lines form. We entered the restaurant at 6:30 and by 7:15 the place was full with dozens of people waiting outside. Wow!

Our dinner tonight. It was delicious! We shared this pizza and took some back to our room for tomorrow. The size of this pizza had to be 18″. Everyone else in the restaurant was ordering a pizza a piece – and eating it! Funny thing – the pizzas were all about two inches larger than the plates they were served on. Don’t you think they would have figured out to either make the pizzas smaller or serve them on bigger plates? That’s Italian I guess.

P.S. Our room is quiet, no wafting pizza aroma. 🙂