PyCon Italia 2025 🇮🇹

Before heading to Florence for last year's PyCon Italia, I had booked a train ticket to Bologna the day after the conference to spend the day exploring before flying home. On the final day of the conference, they announced it would be in a different place in 2025 (after many years in Florence): Bologna. I had no way of knowing if I would be attending that event, so it didn't make any sense to change my plans either. As it was only a day trip though, there were naturally some things I didn't get to experience, so when I arrived in Bologna this year, I headed straight to the anatomical theater, which was closed the day of the week I went last year. The other site that was closed last year was closed for repairs and still is: the Two Towers. Afterward, I had an early dinner of tagliatelle with ragù alla bolognese at the market I ate at last year and stopped by Venchi buy some chocolates and their olive oil dark chocolate hazelnut spread to bring home as I do every year. I also got a gelato because it was pretty hot outside.

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Bologna is located in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, right in the center of the country. The hyphenated name comes from these being two separate regions in the past: Emilia and Romagna. This region is known for its food, and from the cappuccino and stuffed brioche (with pistachio spread, ricotta cream, nutella, etc.)¹ in the mornings, to the conference lunches, to the dinners with fresh, handmade pasta, it did not disappoint.

As I had explored the main parts of Bologna last year, I made it a point to see a few spots outside the city via the Italian train system. I spent a few hours in Modena (in Emilia like Bologna), where it, unfortunately, rained the entire time. I got to do a balsamic vinegar tasting (they are known for it), which to my surprise meant drinking sips of it (I definitely wish I had eaten lunch before that). I had lunch afterward at a place that suggested different balsamic vinegars depending on the dish (for example, a sweeter one to drizzle on gelato). I had lasagna with balsamic vinegar – a combination I never would have thought about trying, but I actually liked it better with the balsamic vinegar than without it.

I also went to Ravenna (in Romagna), which I liked better. In Ravenna, I did a walking tour of five of the eight UNESCO World Heritage sites² there (the others were farther away): Basilica of San Vitale, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Baptistery of Neon, and Archbishop's Chapel. Each site featured absolutely stunning Byzantine mosaics made from tiny bits of glass, gold, and stone depicting early Christian imagery in which Jesus Christ is happy and healthy looking (not suffering) – it was essential to have a guide to even recognize what you were looking at because it was so different. In the Basilica of San Vitale, for instance, the emperor Justinian is depicted on one side and his wife, Theodora, who was a former prostitute, is on the other. It was shocking to learn that back then mosaics weren't regarded as art at all, but rather handiwork, and at one point they decided to cover them up and put a "more respectable" form of art (painting) when the imagery took a darker turn.

When we took a shortcut through a market, the guide was quick to point out some fresh tortelloni and emphasized that it wasn't tortellini: the former is from the Emilia region and very small (like the size of your thumbnail), and the latter is from the Romagna region and much larger (some of the ones I saw were close to thumb-sized). This wasn't the only food revelation I had in Romagna: after purchasing what I would call biscotti to bring back home from a local bakery in Ravenna, I learned that cantucci, which I would always bring back from Florence to get my biscotti fix, is a Tuscan thing, and, in this region, it is not only called something different, scroccadenti, but it is longer, and, to me, airier. My favorite food from the Romagna region was the piadina romagnola, which is an Italian flatbread folded into a sandwich with your choice of fillings, served warm; I had one with prosciutto, arugula, and squacquerone (a soft, crumbly cheese), and it was honestly gone too soon 😋

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The day the conference started my alarm didn't go off – I woke up thinking it must be time to get up and looked at my phone to see the alarm was indeed set, but the time had passed (I still have no clue what happened). This is one of the biggest fears I have with conference presentations, especially when jet lag is involved. Thankfully, I wasn't presenting this day, but it did remind me of a similar incident that happened last year at PyCon Estonia, when I accidentally unplugged my phone in my sleep. The conference itself was quite far from the city center, so en route I watched the conference opening that I had missed and was delighted to see them show a map of the region with the tortellini versus tortelloni distinction.

In addition to checking out some talks and catching up with conference friends and some coworkers from different offices, I used the first day to get the lay of the land at the venue: scout out the room I would be presenting, figure out where espresso could be pulled fresh, etc. At the drinks event that evening, it felt like every time I turned around I saw someone I knew from a previous conference around the world, and, while I definitely saw food there, I wasn't able to snag any because I was chatting too much 😂, but I was able to enjoy a prosecco, and the learn the difference between Grana Padano and Parmigiano Reggiano, the former of which was the only thing I ate there (from a giant wheel of it).

Dinner was late (normal on Italian time) with a group of coworkers at a Roman restaurant that had two ladies in the front hand-making fresh pasta. An Italian coworker of mine was telling me about the name of the restaurant being a woman's name, meaning "fortunate" and that if you add an "S" in front, it becomes "unfortunate" – almost immediately after that, the waiter (who was extremely lively and entertaining) came by to tell me that they were out of what I ordered...and then we did this dance a second time, until my third choice, carbonara,³ was available. I guess the "S" in "Stefanie" made me unfortunate there.

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My talk, "Data Morph: A Cautionary Tale of Summary Statistics," was the next day right before lunch, and my alarm cooperated, so I had plenty of time. Some of the questions I got at the end were about things I was working on or had recently explored, so I got to give people a preview of that, which was nice. After lunch, I saw my favorite talk of the event: "Hello Bug, My Old Friend" by Patrick Deutschmann. In the evening, the conference had organized a walking tour of Bologna, which was enjoyable as I had mainly just wandered around with a list of sites to see last year.

A coworker and I were quite hungry before the walking tour, so we grabbed a gelato⁴ nearby to hold us over until dinner afterward. Once the tour concluded, we went to a nearby restaurant called, Le Moline, which I will admit I picked partially because of the name, but mainly because I wanted to try tortellini in brodo (in broth), which is a popular Bolognese dish. Since we were a large group, there were lots of other things to try, including tortelloni and several types of Italian cured meats and tigelle (small, thin, round bread that you can slice in half and put the meats in), which I already knew from last year that I was a fan of, especially with mortadella. And of course, we had some local red wine for the table, and, (not my doing) one of every dessert they had, which had become a running joke at this point.

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By the final day of the conference, I was having trouble staying awake. All of these late nights had taken their toll, and I, like many attendees, took a beat in the lounge chairs by the pool. As I was eating lunch there, I was catching up on the talks from the morning, particularly the keynote by Nicholas Tollervey, who I only realized was there (in addition to PyCon US the week prior), when we bumped into each other at the walking tour. Funnily enough, about halfway through watching this, he and his wife came over to join me for lunch in the shade 😂

During the final coffee break of the event, I said my goodbyes to my conference friends and headed back to the hotel with a coworker to rest up before meeting for dinner outside in the city center. Afterward, we got some olive oil gelato at Venchi and headed to Piazza del Nettuno to admire the Fountain of Neptune⁵ in the moonlight – something, which I wasn't able to do last year because I needed to catch the train back to Florence. Just a few steps away in Piazza Maggiore, there was a busker who had amassed a huge crowd, so we listened for a bit, soaking up the atmosphere of the square at night, before heading back to the hotel.

The next morning, after one last cappuccino and brioche breakfast, I headed to the airport to return home. This time, I will be home for an entire month to recuperate, and update my content for the next presentations in July at SciPy.

Arrivederci Italia!

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1. Pasticceria Cuppi in Bologna was my go-to place for a typical Italian breakfast. ↩
2. Ravenna is also where the poet Dante Alighieri spent the last few years of his life, and we saw some tributes to him including his tomb, although, it doesn't hold a candle to the mosaics. ↩
3. I didn't really think I would like this too much because I prefer tomato-based sauces, and I was right: the pasta itself was good, but the sauce was way too salty for me. I gave half away, but I did finally get why all the plates and cups had sheep on them – many of the cheese-based sauces were using sheep milk cheeses, like pecorino. ↩
4. This was my first time having almond gelato, and hopefully, it won't be the last (although, pistachio will always be my favorite). ↩
5. Last year, they were also doing some restoration work on the fountain, so it was behind a fence, whereas this year it wasn't. ↩