A full day's excursion to Bologna - the home of Bolognese sauce and "the best tortellini in the world". Italians are horrified that we put Bolognese sauce on spaghetti as it should only be used with flat pasta.

I finally learnt today what is meant by a 'technical stop' that appears in the excursion itineraries at strategic points - it's a toilet break . I'm not sure how they get 'technical stop' out of 'toilet stop'.

Bologna is a lovely old city and would be worth a couple of days stay. Our guided walking tour of the historical city centre barely scratched the surface of what Bologna has to offer the visitor.

The University of Bologna, founded in 1088, is now housed in a lovely old palace (Poggi Palace) and is claimed to be the oldest university in the world. I'm sure Coimbra University in Portugal claimed the same thing! The university's Anatomy Theatre, where anatomy was taught through dissection of corpses, has two 'skinless' statues supporting the canopy over the lecturer's chair. The lecturer never did any dissecting. This was the role of his assistant.

I enjoyed the walk through the district market and would have like to have lingered longer. The displays of fruit and vegetables made for a riot of colour.

The two remaining colossal towers of Asinelli and Garisenda are both leaning - like everything else in this area of Italy. It is a shame these two towers are the traditional symbol of Bologna because they are an eyesore.

Our walking discovery tour of Bologna and free time (long enough for a quick cup of coffee) was followed by a pasta making demonstration at Cantina Bentivoglio, with lunch included . Having won many awards, the little old lady (she was in her 70s) giving the demonstration has been making pasta all her life and does everything by hand, including rolling out the pasta dough to paper thin. No pasta rolling machine for this lady (as seen on Master Chef). Italians cook their pasta al dante - very al dante. I don't like my pasta overcooked, but this under cooking is a bit hard to chew. We were provided with the recipes for Rolling-pin home made sheet of pasta, Preparation of the Tagliatelle and Traditional Bolognese Ragu. No good to me - will give them to Meg.

Back on the boat, I made a conscious decision not to attend the River Heritage Club cocktail party for guests who have traveled with Uniworld before, for which I received a written invitation. I didn't even know I was a member of this exclusive club.

I received an email from Emirates today apologising for the inconvenience of their delayed flight from Sydney to Dubai and crediting 50,000 miles on my Emirates frequent flyer membership. I wonder if I can upgrade to Business Class on the longer leg home? Will try.

What I learnt today...
At 600 kilometres, the Po River is the longest river in Italy.