Bologna, capital of Emilia-Romagna region of Italy is known by three nicknames - the "Learned One" in reference to its university; the "Red One" for the many terracotta building tiles; and the "Fat One" in honour of the cuisine. We came to visit for the food: from the meat based pasta sauce 'ragu' that gave its name to bolognese sauce; to the mortadella sausage speckled with cubes of fat. We ate many local delicacies and our tip for future travellers would be to bring a large suitcase as you will no doubt find some gourmet goodies that you would wish to bring back home as a reminder of this foodie city.
A multi-city long weekend
Whilst Bologna had been on our travel to do list for a while, we had never imagined constructing an Italian long-weekend holiday (just three days) that would also include Florence, Siena and Milan. How did it happen? Well, all the travel planning and preparation in the world can be blown away the instant a food-related illness (poor Olie) kicks in just four hours before the flight. Catching a plane in this state would not be a fun experience; let alone being in Italy and unable to eat all the wonderful foods. So we agreed to postpone our holiday to Florence and Siena last year to the May Bank holiday of this year. Easyjet flights can be altered up to 2 hours before the flight departure time, therefore additional costs incurred were the admin fee and the difference in fares. Our hotel bookings were originally non-refundable however great customer service from a Booking.com representative negotiated with the hotel to allow us to re-book a future date without any costs. So whilst re-planning, we decided to slip in an extra city - Bologna as it was the long weekend at the cost of having to fly out of Milan for an Monday evening route back to London.
This post focuses on everything we did on the trip except for our sightseeing around Siena, detailed in a separate post as we covered a lot of ground on that one day in the beautiful medieval city. Our actual time spent in Milan and Florence was short as we had visited both cities previously for Mei's birthday in 2012.
London to Bologna Airport
Online flight bookings have become such a seamless process that when you select a 6:45am flight, you are only concerned with its availability and the cost. It only becomes apparent the day before the flight that you start regretting the early morning wake up - when the alarm goes off at 3:20am for last minute packing and a 4am minicab ride to the airport. Luckily we managed to catch some sleep on the plane, landing at Bologna airport by 10am where we were greeted by a Lamborghini display in the arrival lounge and a deli stall with cured meats inviting us for an early breakfast.
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| Do you prefer your Lamborghini in yellow |
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| or red? |
Bologna Airport to Siena
The Aerobus shuttle service delivered us from the airport to the central station (Bologna Centrale) where we needed to take a train to Siena via Florence. As we were reluctant to gamble on the arrival time of our plane, we deliberately did not buy the train tickets online beforehand. This came at the cost of sky-high prices when you buy on the day and the train service (Trenitalia Frecciarossa) is a high-speed rail. We ended up paying 89 euros for business class tickets as standard class was sold out. As we were recovering from the shock of the inflated prices, we almost lost track of the departure time and had some drama trying to find the platform. Note for the future: Bologna train station is multi-storey and high speed trains depart from the lowest level. So when the station guard shook his head indicating that it was 'difficult' for us to make our train based on where the platform was located, we merely took this as a challenge and raced down many flights of stairs and passageways (running for trains is an art we seem to have mastered based on past experience), catching the service with a breathless two minutes to spare.
We interchanged at Florence for about half an hour, with the service to Siena being a less pricey local ticket. The journey itself was scenic, however the train only had a few carriages and was filled with day-trippers so we had to be quick to secure a seat.
Siena to Bologna
After a wonderful overnight stay in Siena (per our separate blog post) we were somewhat delusional in thinking that it would be straight forward on a Sunday to buy a train connection back to Bologna. We caught the train from Siena to Florence without any drama. But our folly was revealed when we discovered all train tickets from Florence to Bologna were sold out. The option of spending a night in Florence and forgoing Bologna (including the prepaid hotel accommodation) was not appealing. We then spent some time considering alternative routes via another Italian city. There were other lengthy options with many connection changes and it was only by chance that we saw a minibus service between Florence and Bologna Airport. Located in a side street at the back of the Firenze Santa Maria Novella train station, it offered direct trips that took over an hour and cost 25 euro each. We arrived at Bologna Airport close to 1:45pm and in a deja vu situation, we took the Aerobus back to Bologna Centrale train station. In the end we unfortunately didn't get to achieve any additional sightseeing in Florence.
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Plaque honoring Bologna's famous son - Guglielmo Marconi,
he even has the Airport named after him |
Millenn Hotel
Our Bologna hotel was located in a street parallel to the train station and near the ruins of the old city walls. When we checked in, we were amused by the volumes of floating puff balls that littered the hotel lobby and most of the Old Town, a seasonal phenomena from the local trees that gave Springtime a distinctive Winter wonderland feel.
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| Caught in a storm of floating white puff balls |
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| Architecture in Bologna |
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| Bologna - the 'Red One' |
Exploring Bologna
We didn't start exploring the city until mid afternoon, craving something to eat as we walked the fifteen or so minutes from our hotel to Piazza Maggiore, the geographical heart of the historical centre. The central space was full of buildings, cafes and all manner of tourists and locals rushing around. We passed by the Palazzo Re Enzo, named after the King of Sardinia who was held prisoner here in the 1200's; and the Fountain of Neptune.
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| Plazzo Re Enzo |
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| Fountain of Neptune |
Il Quadrilatero
Bologna's traditional food markets can be found in the medieval side streets and small passageways between Via Pescherie Vecchie and Via Drapperie. We found a building that housed a food court where you could buy dishes from the side stalls and eat in the central group of tables. We ate fried seafood, a parma ham sandwich and pork crackings all washed down with beer.
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| The narrow lane-ways of Il Quadrilatero |
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| Beer and fried seafood |
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| Pork crackling |
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| Parma ham sandwich |
Basilica of San Petronio
After lunch, we visited the Basilica of San Petronio, a church dedicated to a bishop of Bologna from the fifth century and has an unfinished facade.
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| Basilica of San Petronio |
Due Torri (Two Towers)
Bologna was once home to more than 100 towers built by wealthy families from the 12th century. Only a handful remain and these twin towers are the emblem of the city.
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| Due Torri |
Gelateria Gianni
We found this gem of a place with the best tasting gelati we had eaten for a while and judging by the queues all the locals thought so too.
Ristorante da nello Al Montegrappa
Olie had researched and booked this restaurant serving traditional cuisine (including the ragu) for dinner. We were one of the first patrons to arrive and seats filled up quickly. The pasta was excellent and so were the two creamy desserts that we rationalised as deserving due to the afternoon of drama filled travel.
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| Front of the restaurant |
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| Print articles about the restaurant |
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| Cured duck and pasta |
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| Red wine |
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| Dessert - creme caramel and tiramisu |
Bologna University
Bologna is home to Western Europe's first university dating back to 1088. After dinner, we visited the university district to see some of the city's porticoes - covered walkways built to create additional housing for students; and are currently on the UNESCO Tentative World Heritage List.
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| Street art near the University area |
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| Porticoes near the University |
Girl with a Pearl Earring
The next morning we decided to inject more culture into our tour of Bologna and we visited the exhibition at the Medieval Civic Museum in the Palazzo Ghisilardi Fava where the iconic painting of the Dutch master, Vermeer was on display. Tickets cost 12 euro and we spent close to an hour admiring the different works of art.
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| Girl with a Pearl Earring |
Cured Meats and Produce
For lunch we headed back to the food market district to pick up something to eat including slices of parma ham and mortadella from the AF Tamburini shop, a Bologna icon that sells an enormous range of meat, cheese, fresh pasta and sauces.
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| 7 euro for 100grams |
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| Outside the store |
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| The long counters of food |
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| The price-list for Balsamic Vinegar |
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| The vintages you can't buy in Tesco |
Porta Galliera
On route back to the hotel, we stopped by the Porta Galliera, one of the city gates where in historical times was by a canal. An elderly man started speaking to us in Italian with the occasional English word. From our understanding, he was explaining to us that the canal flowed to the Po River and this fertile land provided the agricultural wealth of the Emilia-Romagna region.
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| Porta Galliera |
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| Excavated remains of the canal |
Milan
We caught the mid afternoon train from Bologna to Milan and found ourselves with two hours of spare time at Milan train station before we needed to be at the Airport. As it was too hot to explore the city centre, we spent the time drinking beer and people watching at a small food market that came with a full sized foosball table that could accommodate a full football team.
Flight Home
One of the highlights of the flight home was being able to see the snow covered Alps from thousands of metres in the air. We also entered Easyjet's seat-selfie competition and had a brief moment of fame when we were shortlisted and part of a photo collage on their Facebook page.
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| The Alps from above |
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| Seat Selfie |
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