The different side.

Most who come to Italy stick to the big cities, Rome, Florence and Venice. Some venture to other places, Naples, Bari, Cortona or Genoa, as we also have.  

Visiting these places is amazing and seeing the history in the central areas is often breathtaking. I do believe that it does not show a correct representation of Italy as a whole. 

Outside the Centro Storico (central city area), there is a different perspective.  Please don't think I am being disrespectful, but I don't believe it is acknowledged by tourists and travellers. Today we travelled to a suburb of Bologna on bus #30 to a shopping plaza - Lame Plaza.  No, this is not what we called it; it's the name of the suburb. I would suggest it is pronounced Laa-Mey.

This plaza was the size of Corio Village, had about 40 shops and was the biggest Coop we had ever seen. 

On arrival, we went to the bar and had due (2)  Cappuccini and due (2) croissants. It is also a place where you can get your supplies like our favourite Pocket Coffee and the like.

From here, we circled through the plaza, and yes, there are common stores, ladies' fashion, jewellery, men's clothes, mobile phone and technology shops. 

We ventured into the Coop, a large store like Woolworths, but much bigger. It was almost like a Costco. It had a pharmacy, bakery, sushi store, buy in bulk and save section and three aisles of pasta!

We made a number of purchases, and most items we later posted home, yes, it is expensive to post items like chocolate and wine home, but it is little treats like these that we appreciate much after this journey has finished. 

Some standouts are pictured below. 

I wish we could buy prosciutto like this at home.

Not sure; unrefrigerated in a box

So, we have been under the impression people wouldn't normally go home for lunch across Italy, well may be the case in the centre of the city. Still, here in Lame, we saw workers from all walks of life come to the Coop with colleagues and order from the Bai Marrie hot food, cooked vegetables, pizza, pasta or anything else.  The queue was long and moved well. It also appeared the staff behind the counter knew the workers and continued healthy banter with each of them.

The Coop also had a coin-to-note converter; however, it took about 10% of the coins as a fee!

The area we were in was what we would call typical suburbia, the same as suburbia at home but different, with more tower blocks (8 stories high), gardens in public areas unkept, and not too much rubbish around but much more graffiti than expected. 

The people looked more determined to get where they were going, to get a better/best deal while shopping, or to make the most of the time they had while having a coffee. 

Leaving after lunch at the Lame Shopping Plaza, we caught bus #30 back to the central city. However, this time it was also school finished time, and the bus was full of students. Meaning there was no way for us to enter the bus from the front like we should have, so we followed the local lead and entered through the exit doors. This also meant no sitting, being packed like sardines and no way we could ever get to the front to validate our tickets. So along with the others who got on, we had a free ride. 

Today is our last day in Bologna. It has been a great place to explore and relax. Tomorrow we catch the fast train to our final destination.