Bobbio

We took a day trip to the town of Bobbio, a 30 minute drive from the Airbnb we were staying at in Collegio.

It was a chilly, slightly rainy overcast day. There were a lot of motorcycles along the windy mountain roads and throughout the town. Bobbio was elected Italy’s most beautiful village in 2019, surrounded by breath-taking architecture and mountains. Bobbio is located in the Province of Piacenza and is known for Ponte Gobbo or Hunchback bridge. The bridge crosses over the Trebbia river and is thought as what Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa painting background was inspired by! The water of the Trebbia river is clear and aquamarine due to the lime stone. The bridge was built in Roman times and has been rebuilt several times consisting of 11 variable size arches. Across the bridge is a quaint restaurant that overlooks the bridge and river with lovely ivy covering the stone walls.

In the center of the town is the Cathedral of Bobbio. A beautiful church, with colorful murals filling the inside walls. You can light candles in honor of loved ones or saints around the church. I lite two candles for my grandparents as they were from Italy. In the basement of the church is the glass crypt of Saint Antony Maria Gianelli, an interesting sight. My partner and I debated on whether the person in the glass box was real or not. I didn’t think it was, because of how short his legs were. Also, because the body is over 200 years old and looks like he just recently passed away. I’m not too familiar with their preserving dead bodies techniques in the 1800s, but I didn’t think the technology would be this advanced. If it truly is him, I am impressed. I was not expecting a saint’s body to be an open display in the basement of this church though.

We visited on a Sunday and there was a farmers market filled with a wide variety of cheeses, mushrooms, saffron, honey, and focaccia! There was a large displays of the different varieties of mushrooms found in the Lumbardy region. Some vendors had truffles and pictures of the truffle dogs that found each mushroom.

We ate at a cafe called Il Duomo in the town center overlooking the farmers market and church. The cafe only played copyright-free American music, such as I’m a barbie girl, at least three different times. I’m not sure why they play such music. If it is for tourists, we do not want to hear that. We want to hear your music. We travel to different countries to hear and learn about a different culture.

Afterward listening to kidz bop equivalent songs for an hour, we strolled around the town and discovered a wine event. From context clues, I could infer that you buy a ticket to enter, they give you a wine glass in a necklace pouch, and you walk around the vendors trying the different types of wine. At the end of all the tables was a pasta table, potentially to soak up the wine. We decided to skip the wine festival and go right to the pasta table. By the time we got there, they ran out of pasta for the day. We decided to make pasta at home, so we bought pasta along with porcini mushrooms from the vendors and chestnuts, because they were in season.

After the walk back through town and another look at the bridge, we decided to head back to our airbnb to cook dinner and get cozy.