A Damp Day Out

I awoke to the sound of rain pattering against my windows, and I returned home with my trousers, socks, and shoes soaked, which is why this post is late.  I still have no wi fi in the room and after I'd stripped off my soggy clothes all I could face was a cup of green tea and my kindle.
When one travels to Europe--or anywhere I guess--one just deals with the weather, and my time here is so short and the list of things so long, I set forth for Modena.
Modena is a short and easy train ride from Bologna.  The train plowed through a landscape I'd call wintery, except that no frost adorned the ground.  The trees looked skeletal, and the vine stocks barren.  I saw short, twisted trees I thought were olives, but they also were leafless, so I could not be sure.
Modena, once home to the Este Family, is a handsome dignified city even in the pouring rain. What my guidebook and the internet did not tell me, is that it shuts down tight on Saturday afternoon. Or perhaps just the Saturday before Easter?  I wandered around taking in Baroque and Renaissance palaces.  These aren't open to the public anyway.  The Renaissance palace now serves as Italy's military academy.  I really wanted to see the Romanesque Duomo, which is reputedly one of the finest examples in Italy, but the exterior was covered in scaffolding and the church was locked up. Few people were on the streets besides us bewildered tourists.
But what of the famed Aceto Balsamico de Modena?  It's vinegar or soured wine redistilled and aged some twenty years, and the purported balsamic one pulls off the supermarket shelves is not the real deal.  One does not pour this stuff on salad.  Apparently the proper way to eat it is to put a drop on some shards of parmesan.  But the stores were closed!  Could I obtain this elixir elsewhere?  Then I passed an open "bar" that had bottles of balsamic displayed in the window.  I went in and chose a tiny bottle I knew I could pack.  The proprietor was a friendly, very outgoing woman, who must have been delighted to have some custom that afternoon.  She spoke English, praised my purchase to the skies and expressed tremendous admiration for California, especially San Francisco.  New York City, she said was too full of weirdos.  I didn't know what to say to that.
I am drinking and enjoying Lambrusco these days.  It's red and fizzy--not sparkling though.  It's also very cheap here being the local wine, and if you find a bot that says DOC you won't go wrong--even in the United States I would guess.  At any rate it goes well with pasta.  I had pumpkin ravioli, which I learned to like in Lombardy, and it's a popular filling in Emilia as well.  I also tried the true "baloney" or mortadella.  I got it sliced thin.  This is not the industrial sandwich filling of my girlhood.  It has a rich and subtle taste and also goes well with Lambrusco.
Ciao