in the past couple of weekends i've gone to the towns of bergamo and bologna. bergamo is about an hour northeast of milan, and it used to be a venetian outpost. it's interesting because it has a lower, more modern city, and the original medieval city is situated on a hill above. it's really beautiful, and had a couple of interesting places like castle ruins, a botanical garden and an old theater. and lots of chestnuts and polenta.

here is the main piazza in the citta' alta (high city) of bergamo.

here's a view of the citta' bassa (low city) from a road coming down from castle ruins at the top of the old city.

now to bologna, which is one of my favorite places i've been so far. it has a really prestigious university, where dante and petrach studied, and when the university was built, apparently more wealthy families came into town. to prove their wealth and greatness or whatever, each family built their own tower. what purpose these towers served, i have no idea. but they were often built so crappily that the foundations sank and most of them aren't around today. this is a picture of one that remains, and you can't tell from the photo, but it is massively leaning. it's right next to the torra degli asnelli, a tower that took us like half an hour of climbing up tiny wooden steps to reach the top.

here's a photo of the piazza in an old building used for the university. inside is a wooden-carved theater, used to study anatomy in the 1600s, i think. it was almost completely bombed out in wwII, but they've done an amazing job of restoring it.

this is a stairwell outside the church of san luca, up on a hill on the outskirts of bologna. you walk for about 2 km along a steep-ish covered walkway that gives great views of the city below.

that is all. so far, i've been to bellagio, finale ligure, bolzano, bergamo, and bologna, and i think our streak of b cities may be coming to an end. but i'd recommend any of those places, especially bolzano and bologna.