San Marino / Bologna to Venice, Italy

Even if I haven’t visited most of northern Italy before, you could say that it’s a known quantity. Everyone knows someone who’s visited or wants to visit. Everyone knows how good the food is. Everyone’s probably learned at least some of the history in school — whether it be about artistic figures, religion, war, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance… Much has been said, and there’s not much for me to add.

I won’t lie, my main interests don’t exactly lie in these things, even if I can enjoy or have appreciation for them. What brings me to this area, and what’s kept me going in spite of peak season crowds and extreme heat, are friends: one who moved back to Italy from Canada, one who happens to be in town, Italian friends from Canada getting married and all our mutual friends in town for that wedding, and one guiding me through her hometown in absentia. Same goes for Switzerland, a detour tacked onto the end to visit some more friends again. That made for a grand but overwhelming time of reunions and highlight after highlight threatening to blur into each other.

Most of those highlights are ones that I think best remain in our memories. But in between, there was some exploring too!
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