336 hours in Bologna

Great atmosphere, just a 30-minute walk from the Pratello, and hey, it's quality Serie A football. Fans of the visiting team are kept in a literal cage for their protection. Vendors in the city can be found here (enter "Emilia Romagna" as your region). I got my ticket at L'Occitane Voyages at Via Della Lame 2. Bring your passport. Your name is printed on your ticket so you'll also need some kind of identification at the stadium. The Rosso e Blu fell behind, then boat-raced Empoli in the second half, with all four goals coming right in front of me. On the way home, every scooter on Via Costa tooted its horn.

Mostly playful and juvenile, without the polish and ambition of Porto, yet still one senses that important urban psychodramas are being played out on the ochre walls of Bologna. A mask falls away from a modern-day Madonna living two lives. Unlock your brain and start thinking for yourself, urges a hollow, floating head on Via Manzoni, his eyes, mouth and skull open, providing a kind of hieroglyphic blueprint for doing so. Stickmen cops shoot at one another because ... well, there's a backstory there surely. The impulsive brushstrokes of the neighborhood tribalist are found here in great numbers of course. As in Amsterdam, Brussels and almost every major Western city, they become almost invisible after a couple of days. More accomplished works can be found on the rolling shutters shopkeepers pull down at night, many on the city's west side. A marimba-playing boar by Andrea D'Ascanio, aka Sardomuto. He's from Sardinia. The next four are by Aless...

They built them to be closer to the heavens or further from the muck of the street. To scan for marauders coming over the Appenine Mountains or to one-up the Joneses next door. Craning your neck at the Piazza di Porta Ravegnana, one can appreciate all of these hypotheses. What we do know is that a field of slender four-sided monoliths once reached toward the sky here and that one of them, the Torre Garisenda, was the subject of verses in Dante's "Inferno." Clouds floating in the opposite direction of the tower's tilt created the impression it was about to crash into the ground, the poet remarked. The lines are inscribed at the base of the tower, which was taller in Dante's time. For safety's sake, it was shortened in the 1350s. The Torre Garisenda is a tale of survival. Until recently it was thought that as many as 180 such torri existed in the city, which inspired conjectural drawings like the one below and, in turn, lazy headline writers to des...

The weather here has been indescribably beautiful during my visit, but waking up to the sound of rain is a soothing excuse to play hooky from "vacation school," to sit around watching "Suburra" or soccer highlights, or to listen to the patter on the leaves in my neighbor's perfect little giardino , where a toddling granddaughter visits most days around noon and fills the courtyard with laughter.

As a stranger in a strange land, I always feel a bit adrift, not above relying on the unearned sympathy of strangers who feel sorry for the guy who can't hold up his end of the conversation. Welcomed by the staff at any food establishment in Bologna, however, the dynamic shifts in my favor. I am safe and invincible, cocooned by an unassuming professionalism. Waiters here have invariably addressed me in Italian and not baby English, and that means a lot. To a fault they have been impeccably polite and unobtrusive, patiently waiting for me to raise an index finger for dessert, for coffee, for il conto . How refreshing it is not to be assaulted with a "How's everything tasting? or a "Are you still working on that?" At his most gregarious, a Bologna waiter might approach from the side, bend slightly at the waist without making eye contact and ask in a near-whisper, "Va bene?" before quickly retreating. It is a pro move. We are co-conspirators. Nino...

The number of monstrously large 16th-century palazzos in Bologna is mind-blowing. You can't walk 50 meters without passing one, and after awhile you almost stop noticing them. A few of the old palaces sit empty, but most have been repurposed into flats, or offices for lawyers or trade unions (an unsurprisingly large number of these). Palazzo Torfanini with its 16th-century portico. The door was ajar, so I walked inside. Some are open to the public for a small fee. The one-percenters back then could do whatever they wanted, apparently, but still, I can't believe the scale of these residences. Huge staffs must have been employed to tend to them, and today you'd need a drone camera to put their mass in perspective. Casa Delle Tuate at No. 6 Via Galliera. Some of the grandest of these Renaissance-era homes line Via Galliera, which was the principal north-south artery before Via dell'Indipendenza was carved out in the late 1800s. You can see several...

Via Santo Stefano. The entire city is not colonnaded; some streets are simply too narrow to allow for the overhangs. But where width allows, there will be porticoes on either side. An editor once explained to me that that the lack of a singular possessive apostrophe in "Caesars Palace" was a well-considered choice by the casino-hotel in order to skirt the possibility of its name being construed as a palace belonging to a single Caesar-like big shot. Instead, the reasoning goes, each of the casino's patrons is a little Caesar unto himself, deserving of all the amenities and advantages the property allows. If central Bologna has a main drag, it is probably Via Indipendenza. A similar kind of egalitarianism is at work in the shade of Bologna's dozens of miles of porticoes, where the rich and poor alike can guard against sunburn and rain-streaked mascara. They provide a weighty, elegant feel to the city's streets and a bit of visual and physical drama. You...

Look, I love Italy and I get it: In hindsight, everyone's great-granddad was aligned against Mussolini, but it's just not possible. The war would not have unfolded as it did if that were the case. I'll probably get murdered for saying this, but maybe April 25 should be a day of quiet reflection about how the nation wound up fighting alongside the Nazis on the Eastern Front, in north Africa and Greece, and against its own damn citizens . I won't even get into how the Japanese and Germans handle anniversaries like these, and there is no paid Appomattox holiday in the United States; the very idea is grotesque. I'll hang up and listen.

In a city of towers, the smaller ones gain little attention. This one belonged to the Catellani family, who used it as a warehouse in the 1200s. That's what an Italian-language plaque erected by the city of Bologna says, but like most accounts of the Middle Ages, it is speculative and incomplete. Was it ever inhabited? Was it lighted from within, and how? Did the Catellanis peer out from the top to look for enemies? What are all the fist-sized holes for? Ventilation? Support of wooden beams? Hard to show the entire tower because the streets are so narrow. About six stories tall. I am not even certain I want to know the elementary ABCs. If you learn what the abbreviation JPEG stands for, is your appreciation of the photo format deepened? Not at all! What life was like before the printing press can only be known by those who lived it, and they tell few tales. Bologna and Cairo are the most mysterious places I have visited, and both are best experienced by giving your im...

Not exactly a con, but not the real thing either. Spitballin' Larry King-style while waiting for the water to boil: 1. The men's shoe game is strong : suede brogues and slip-on drivers, leather Common Projects sneaks. The gals not so much; lotsa Chucks and flyknit this-and-that nursing kicks. 2. There's a difference between tortellini and tortelloni. The 'loni is bigger. When they rise to the top, they're done. Ninety seconds max. 3. Weed is legal. Well, it's more like hemp. I don't think it has any psychoactive properties. A bridge to the real stuff; won't be long. Gotta go.

Now nearly extinct in North America, two giant leaps for customer convenience in the early 20th century, the Automat and the self-serve cigarette machine, still have their place in Europe. On Via Marconi. For fans of Fascist/Modernist architecture, a walk down this north-south thoroughfare is really worthwhile. On Porta Nova, near the beautifully preserved medieval gate of the same name.