As is the case on much of "the Continent", Sundays are quiet affairs in Italy. Since nothing was going to be open, Jeremy and decided that it would be a good day to go for a walk, and there seemed to be no better walk to take than along the three-and-a-half-kilometer long Portico di San Luca. The portico is the longest arcade in the world. Its 666 arches meander out of Bologna and up the hills to the southwest of the city, ending at the Santuario di San Luca, a 17th-century basilica with a commanding view of Bologna and the surrounding countryside.

The city was quiet and empty as we embarked upon our pilgrimage in the morning. It was pleasant to stroll under the arches and take in the sleepy Sunday atmosphere and the amazing little details of the old buildings and streets. The colors and textures of the city are marvelous. The buildings are all done up in warm yellow and vibrant terracotta, and the peeling paint, exposed brickwork and faded murals on the walls add a sense of startlingly picturesque decay. It’s not a pristine city, it’s a lived-in city that has seen a lot of history, and remarkable, mysterious things peer out at you from every corner and every doorway.

When we reached the Porta Saragozza - an old gate on the western edge of the city, and the official start of the Portico di San Luca - we stopped for a quick espresso at the counter of a little cafe. Thus fortified, we headed out the gate and started the trek up to the basilica, past the miles of orange and gold arches.

As we got further out of the city, we noticed that there seemed to be an awful lot of carabinieri around. I was wondering if Bologna was going to live up to its reputation as a hotbed of political activism and provide us with some sort of demonstration or protest. It was only when we reached the real outskirts of town that we realized what was going on: a soccer game. The soccer stadium (which you can see on the left-hand side of the picture below) was thronged with people wearing scarves in their team colors and waving pennants and doing whatever it is soccer fans in Italy do prior to a game (as we found out later, soccer fans in Bologna, anyway, like to go for a nice meal before a game - we should have expected that). Jeremy happened to be wearing the blue-and-grey striped scarf I made for him, and since we couldn’t be sure that blue and grey weren’t the colors of the opposing team, we scurried briskly past the stadium and continued our hike up to the basilica.

Hike is the operative word here. Whereas the peregrination through town had been a pleasant, relaxed affair, the climb up to the church quickly became something of an ordeal. There were stairs, and more stairs, and more stairs, and more stairs. I got hotter and hotter (and grumpier and grumpier) in my winter coat. The ceaseless row of arches started to become rather tedious, and I began to intensely envy both the people whizzing up the hill in cars, and the people who had already made the climb up to the basilica and were now trotting down again. I was thirsty. I was sweaty. And I made a show of posing on the stairs for Jeremy’s camera just so that I could stop and catch my breath for a minute.

When we finally made it to the top, we collapsed in a heap on a bench and observed - The Basilica. There was absolutely nothing else to observe because, once again, the surrounding countryside lay shrouded in mist. I’ll have to take it on faith that there are "spectacular panorama views" from up there. The basilica was very nice, but for reasons I can no longer remember, we didn’t go in (there may have been a service on). Instead we sat on our bench, watched some people eating a picnic lunch, decided we were starving, and started back down through the 666 arches and into town.

We had a specific lunch destination in mind: Trattoria Meloncello, which - according to my guide book, anyway - has been a traditional food stop for people going up to or coming down from the basilica. We had kept an eye out for it on our way up, and when we came back down, we realized why we had missed it earlier: it had been surrounded by hordes of soccer fans and carabinieri. Its convenient location right across from the stadium has apparently made the Trattoria Meloncello a traditional food stop for soccer pilgrims as well.

There were still a lot of people hanging around outside when we got back to the little restaurant, and when we went over to see what was happening, we noticed that there were actually bouncers manning the doors. There was much gesturing and speaking of Italian going on, and somehow Jeremy and I managed to piece together what the story was: there must always be big crowds of people wanting to eat lunch when a match is on, so the trattoria has bouncers to control the crowds. It seemed that a bunch of the team managers or something had booked the whole restaurant for lunch, but they were finishing up and going off to the game, and the bouncers were letting a select few people in to grab some lunch before the trattoria closed.

Jeremy and I started to turn away to find someplace else to eat, but one of the bouncers told me "Five minutes, five minutes" in Italian, which I took to mean that in five minutes we would be let in for lunch. I was, thankfully, not mistaken. A few minutes later, a crowd of people came out of the restaurant, and the bouncers ushered us through the door, followed us in, and closed and locked the door behind them.

And thus began a funny and delicious lunch. It was just us and the bouncers, who appeared to be friends of the restaurant-owner’s family, if not part of the family itself. The frazzled waitress apologetically informed us in a mixture of Italian and Spanish that their kitchen had been wiped out by the crowds. We were able to choose the starters we wanted (green lasagne for me, tagliatelle al ragu for Jeremy, of course), but she practically begged us to take the only main dish they had available: a rich, delicious stew loaded with vegetables and meltingly soft beef, which was consumed with gusto by Jeremy, me and the bouncers (who looked like they had enjoyed many fine, hearty meals at the Trattoria Meloncello). We washed it down with a bottle of wine, and then polished off the meal with dessert (I had an amaretto creme caramel that was to die for) and a super-strong espresso.

Eating in the tiny, locked-up restaurant was a bit like eating under siege, but it was a very cozy siege indeed. Below, you can see a picture of the locked-up trattoria. It looks pretty grim in the picture - particularly with the carabinieri van parked outside and the shutters pulled down over the window - but trust me, it’s a lovely little place with very nice people and very good food. Oh, and it’s Slow Food-approved, which is always a very, very good thing.

After lunch, we finished our journey through the arches and then sauntered lazily around the town, finding funny little towers and buildings around every corner. We were fairly wiped out by the day’s activities, so we didn’t engage in any strenuous sightseeing. When dinnertime rolled around, we were tired and still full from lunch, but we couldn’t bear to pass up one last meal in Bologna, so we decided to do the seemingly obvious thing to do when one is in Italy: we went to a pizzeria. The pizza was the most forgettable meal we had in Bologna; in fact, the only thing I remember is tasting the pizza and thinking that my own pizza sauce was a lot better (if I may say so myself).

But one mediocre pizza did nothing to mar our memories of what was otherwise a food-lover’s dream of a trip. On our last morning in town, we did some last-minute shopping, snapping up silly, tortellini-shaped chocolates for our friends and taking our last look at the food stalls and shops in the Quadrilatero. For reasons that remain a mystery to us, we didn’t actually buy anything for ourselves - no huge piece of parmesan, no hunk of culatello, no zesty Sangiovese or sparkly, dry Lambrusco to bring back to England. Maybe it’s just as well. It wouldn’t have tasted the same back in Brighton.

Having said that, Jeremy and I have managed to cobble together a startlingly authentic-tasting recipe for tagliatelle al ragu (it’s not hard - the secret is in the simplicity), so when the mood strikes us, we whip up a batch of sauce, toss it with some fresh pasta, top the whole thing with freshly grated parmigiano reggiano, mop up the juices with some crusty bread, and sit back to sip a nice Italian wine and reminisce about the decadent November weekend we spent in bustling, red-gold Bologna.