My Mother's arrival...

If you are receiving guests - expect bad weather.
After living in Bologna for almost 8 months on an Erasmus exchange program, my mother calls me up and announces she has booked Ryanair tickets to come visit me. For the 7 of the 8 months that I have been here it had rained, snowed, hailed and the the wind had given me rashes and breakouts on dried skin. Until a few weeks ago when the skies turned blue and beautiful and the sun allowed the cold-whipped trees to dress up in green again. I am overwhelmed to receive my guest in the new lovely city who's beauty I'm discovering in a new light, so when it starts pouring buckets from the sky, I get pretty disappointed.

Most of the city's pedestrian paths are large marble walkways built into the buildings, harbouring cafés, bars and shops, therefore you're mostly avoiding rain under these arcs and window-shopping as you do so. But to see the architecture and appreciate the city you have to emerge and look up and all around you which can prove difficult in certain weather for technical reasons. This doesn't apply to every city but I feel this way about Bologna.

Mother arrives at Bologna Centrale at a little past midnight, which means she gets to witness the homeless and the drunk students camping out around the station in all their glory, her first impression is a little hazy because she's tired and confused by hitting up three locations in one day.
We take her to her hotel and check her in. The one star Pansione Marconi for a wooping €50 per person a night, breakfast not included. The man at the night reception desk is reluctant to greet us and doesn't bother speaking English until we check her in, then he warns me in perfect English that I'm only allowed fifteen minutes up in the room. That is how you learn Italian. The room is tiny, minimally clean with two single beds and an ashtray by each, the bathroom is closet-sized with no soap.
Fair enough. It's only for one night.
The next morning I come to check my mother out and I'm greeted by a much more cheerful and polite individual who calls to her room and is generally more excited to help out with the check out. The morning is sunny and we decide to head to the next destination, leave my mother's luggage and find a cosy café for the classic Italian breakfast consisting of a cappuccino and brioche. My mother's next lodgings are located in a much more central part of town next to one of Bologna's best gelaterias "Gelateriagianni".
I have discovered this particular Bed and Breakfast in a serendipitous occasion of arriving to the city months earlier with very heavy bags, subsequently having the wheels break off and not knowing where to stay. I then walked into a random travel agency (literally the first door I saw) to find an English speaking lady with a cousin who owned a B&B. Cristina Rossi is one of the most pleasant hostesses I have ever encountered, with well priced, clean and antique stacked rooms she proved to be very helpful then and now. My mother being a hard-to-impress Russian lady was very pleased with Cristina's hospitality. She charged €40 per night in high season, breakfast included, free wifi, bathroom necessities and central location.
Unfortunately the room is available for only two days and it just doesn't seem fair wasting so much money on Bologna when there is so much to see in North Italy.
Thus my Cross-Italy-Adventuring begins...