Day 10: Bologna

We woke up refreshed and ready for another big day ahead. We were all very excited to learn how to make the typical Italian dessert, tiramisù (pick me up) together with our host class at Malpighi. We split off into two classrooms where we separated eggs and mixed them with sugar and mascarpone to create the filling before dipping savoiardi biscuits into fresh espresso coffee to soften the biscuits. We carefully layered the soaked biscuits with our zabaglione and mascarpone mixture before topping the whole thing with cocoa powder ready for the fridge. At this point, we all realised that tiramisù is a dessert that requires several hours in the fridge before it is ready to be eaten and so we would not be consuming our lovely dessert for now. Concerningly, no one seemed to know when we could plan to eat our tiramisù so we hope we will be able to take it out of the fridge eventually and enjoy it... in the meantime, we indulged in the leftover filling mixture, dipping spoons, fingers, and leftover savoiardi biscuits into our bowls to get a sugar hit. Even if we haven't tasted our tiramisù, at least we all now know what goes into an authentic tiramisù and perhaps with this knowledge we can avoid creating sacrilegious versions of the classic dish back home in Australia.

Our morning's hard work earned us a short break during which we played table tennis and volleyball and visited the local metro supermarket to stock up on energising snacks for our trek up to San Luca. Miss Borg even learned that in Italian supermarkets it is apparently customary to weigh your own fruit and wait for the machine to give you a sticker with the price on it before heading to the register.

With bags full of snacks and bottles full of water, we commenced our very long walk uphill to the Santuario Madonna di San Luca (the sanctuary of the Madonna of San Luca). Bologna's famous portici shielded us from the sun and the heat, ensuring that the only red faces were those of the stunning buildings around us. With its unpredictable weather, surely Melbourne would benefit from such structures to protect visitors from rain, hail, and shine. Even though we were fortunate to be walking in largely cool shaded areas, that did not change the fact that this walk was very long and entirely uphill. We couldn't all agree as to whether the steep inclines or sections with stairs were worse, but we were all glad to finally mmake it to the church at the top and agreed that the panoramic views of Bologna and striking building were well worth the effort we had put in. We were also grateful for the Piazza in front of the church at the top where we could enjoy our lunch together, refill our water bottles from the drinking fountain, and take some photos against a beautiful backdrop. 

What goes up, must come down, and so we retraced our steps this time in descent. Luckily, with gravity on our side the same path was much easier and we had a much better time on the way back to Malpighi where we arrived in time to meet our host siblings when they finished classes for the day.