Bologna, Italy

After Milan we headed to Bologna for three days. Bologna is a more mid-sized city and it’s a university town so there were a lot of young college students around which made it feel very lively all day. Bologna also has a lot of shopping, restaurants, and bars. It has medieval and Renaissance structures like the City Hall, Fountain of Neptune, and Basilica di San Petronio.

Food Tour

We did a food tour one evening with the company Delicious Bologna. It was so fun. We got to try several different types of wine, cheese, and pasta. It was fun meeting other travelers, and our tour guide Mattia was very funny and charming. Would definitely recommend this tour to anyone visiting Bologna. It was a highlight of the entire trip.

Strolling around town

Basilica di San Petronio. We learned from our tour guide that only the bottom half of the church is decorated with marble because they ran out of money and just decided to leave it this way over time.

Fountain of Neptune

Santuario di Madonna di San Luca

We walked from the town square to this church on top of the hill over looking the city and countryside. It was 7 miles roundtrip and ~3,500 stairs to the top! Worth it for the views.

The great part about this walk is that it’s covered by arches the entire way. 666 to be exact making it the longest portico in the world. So unique, very helpful in the heat and you could even do this in the rain.

Municipal Art Collections

Food

Mushroom pasta
Homemade tiramisu

Bologna by night

Private Chef Experience

One of the days we were in Bologna we did an AirBnB experience where a chef came to our accommodation and cooked us a 3 course vegetarian meal for lunch. Vegetables are hard to come by in this region of Italy so I was very happy to see greens during this meal! This region is known for its cured meats, cheese, and handmade pasta. So that’s pretty much all you will see on restaurant menus. I was disappointed by the lack of vegetarian options for main dishes and side dishes for that matter. I pretty much ate Margherita pizza, cheese tortellini, and pasta with tomato sauce for 10 days straight.

He started by making his own vegetable stock for the risotto.
Fresh vegetables with olive oil and salt for dipping
Cream of asapargus risotto
Roasted halloumi cheese, grilled vegetables, carrot puree, and fennel salad
Fruit salad for dessert

One Comment Add yours

  1. Lelia Gentry says:

    Glad to see you are back to traveling. Looks like you were enjoying yourself.

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