BOLOGNA · ITALY
Porticoes, pasta, and the long road through Emilia Romagna.
Walking tours under 38 kilometres of arcades, cooking classes with nonne, supercar runs through Motor Valley, and day trips to Modena and Parma. The Italian city most travellers walk past on the way to Florence — and shouldn’t.
La Dotta · La Grassa · La Rossa
Bologna has three nicknames. All of them earned.
The Learned, The Fat, The Red. The university, the food, the porticoes. Pick a thread — you can build an entire trip around any one of them.
The Learned
Home to Europe’s oldest university, founded in 1088. Anatomy theatre, cloisters, frescoed reading rooms. The streets still belong to students nine months a year.
Walking & history tours →The Fat
The capital of Italian food. Tagliatelle al ragù, tortellini in brodo, mortadella, lasagne verdi. Plus the DOP supply chain at the city gates: Parmigiano, Aceto Balsamico, Prosciutto di Parma.
Food & cooking tours →The Red
Red roof tiles, red brick, red ochre porticoes. Bologna has nearly 38 kilometres of arcaded walkways — UNESCO listed since 2021. You can cross the entire city without leaving the shade.
Historic centre tours →Only in Bologna & Emilia Romagna
Three things you can’t do anywhere else.
Walking tours and cooking classes exist in every Italian city. These three don’t. The nonna’s rolling pin, the Ferrari production line, the attic full of balsamic barrels. Each is specific to this stretch of northern Italy. Plan the rest of the trip around them.
In the kitchen
Roll Pasta with a Bologna Nonna
Tagliatelle al ragù was invented in Bologna. Tortellini was invented in the villages just outside. The egg-pasta sheet — the sfoglia — is local DNA, rolled by hand to the thickness of a coin. Cooking classes run morning and evening, and you eat what you make. Pasta tastes different here because it was figured out here first.
- 1 Bologna Local Pasta Cooking Class, Ragu, Spritz, Wine & Gelato
- 2 Bologna: Pasta and Tiramisu Cooking Class with Wine
- 3 Bologna: Pasta and Tiramisu Small Group Cooking Class with Wine
On the road
Drive Through Motor Valley
Ferrari builds in Maranello, Lamborghini in Sant'Agata, Pagani in San Cesario, Ducati in Borgo Panigale. All within an hour of Bologna. Factory tours, test drives on the public roads the cars were designed for, F1 simulators at the Galleria. The densest concentration of supercar marques in the world, and they all run tours.
- 1 Ferrari Lamborghini Pagani Factories and Museums – Tour from Bologna
- 2 Cars&Food: Lambo, Ferrari, Parmigiano, Balsamic, PrivateTransport
- 3 Ferrari Full Day
On the plate
Taste the DOP Originals
Parmigiano Reggiano can only be made in five provinces — this is one of them. Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena ages 12 to 25 years in attic barrels you can stand under. Mortadella starts at the city gates. The geography is small, the DOP rules are strict, and the producers run morning tastings at the dairies and acetaie themselves.
- 1 From Bologna: Parma Cheese & Ham Factory Tours and Tastings
- 2 Private Tour Parmigiano,Prosciutto,Balsamico with driver-Bologna
- 3 Day Tour Parmigiano, Ferrari Museum, Balsamic, Lambrusco, Lunch with Transfer
If you only do one
Start with the tour Bologna is built around.
The most-booked half-day across the city — usually walking the porticoes, the Quadrilatero and a Parmigiano tasting at the end. If you’ve only got one slot in the calendar, start here.
The classics
Bologna’s Most Popular Tours
Walking the porticoes, eating through the Quadrilatero, pasta with a Bologna grandmother. The half-days the city is built around.
By place
Pick a corner of Emilia Romagna.
Each one is its own half-day. The Quadrilatero for the markets. The Two Towers for the medieval skyline. San Luca for the long portico walk. Modena for the cars. Parma for the cheese.
By tour type
Or pick what you want to do today.
A food tour if you came hungry. A pasta class if you came curious. A walking tour for the architecture. A Ferrari run if you came for the cars. Pick the verb; the city has the rest covered.
Under the porticoes
If you came hungry.
Mortadella, tigelle, gelato, parmigiano shavings off the wheel. The kind of walk where lunch is the entire point. If we had to pick three food walks, these are the ones we’d book.
In the kitchen
Hands in the flour.
Tagliatelle from scratch, tortellini sealed by thumb, tiramisu finished with a Marsala soak. Our three favourites for a half-day at the counter — you eat what you make.
When the light goes amber
Aperitivo, the long way.
A Spritz in Piazza Maggiore, crescentine and salumi in a Quadrilatero osteria, the streets filling up as the students arrive. Three picks for the most reliably good two hours of the Bologna day.
Beyond Bologna
Modena, Parma and the road in between.
Ferrari and Lamborghini on one side of the autostrada, Parmigiano dairies and aceto balsamico acetaie on the other. Three day-trip picks across the wider region — book them as Bologna day trips, or work them into a slower Emilia Romagna week.
UNESCO · 2021
38 kilometres of arcaded walkways.
You can cross the entire historic centre, walk to Mass at San Luca on top of the hill, and barely leave the shade. The longest stretch in the world — and the most ordinary stretch you’ll ever walk under, because Bologna lives under them.
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