Bologna

Right now you cannot climb the Asinelli Tower. Bologna’s famous leaning landmark has been closed since 2023 over structural concerns about its neighbor, the more severely tilted Garisenda, and the closure has dragged well into 2026. This matters because a lot of Bologna guides are written as if the tower is a guaranteed highlight, and if you show up expecting to climb it, you’ll be disappointed. Plan around this reality instead of against it.

The City Itself

Bologna is the food capital of Emilia-Romagna and, arguably, of Italy, the birthplace of tortellini, tagliatelle al ragu, and mortadella, and the home of Europe’s oldest continuously operating university, founded in 1088. It gets a fraction of the tourists Florence or Venice pull in, which means restaurants here still cook for locals first. That’s the whole appeal: excellent food without the theater.

Getting In and Around

Bologna’s airport connects to the central train station via the Marconi Express, an automated monorail that covers the distance in seven minutes flat, fully sheltered, running from 5:40am to midnight with departures every few minutes at peak times. A one-way ticket runs about 12.80 euros, which is steep for the distance, but the ticket also includes 75 minutes of onward travel on the city’s Tper buses, so it usually covers your final leg into whichever neighborhood you’re staying in. Tap a contactless card or phone directly at the gates rather than fumbling with the machine.

Here’s a correction worth making bluntly: Bologna does not have an underground metro system, despite what some guides claim. It never has. The city gets around on an extensive bus network instead, which covers the historic center and beyond reliably enough that most visitors never need a car. A tram network has finally been under construction for several years, with the first line expected to open in phases through 2026, so don’t be surprised to see track work around the center; it’s not finished yet and won’t fully replace the bus system for years.

The Historic Center

Piazza Maggiore is the obvious starting point, anchored by the Basilica di San Petronio, a church so enormous it was deliberately left unfinished in the 16th century after the Vatican reportedly worried it would outsize St Peter’s in Rome. The Neptune Fountain just off the square, cast in bronze in the 1560s, is one of the more explicit pieces of public sculpture from the period and worth a slow look rather than a walk-past photo.

The Two Towers, Asinelli and Garisenda, are the city’s medieval skyline in miniature: Bologna once had over a hundred defensive towers built by rival noble families, and these two are the survivors. As noted, Asinelli is currently closed to visitors and will likely remain so through at least the rest of 2026 given the scope of the structural work underway on the adjacent Garisenda. When it does reopen, expect timed-entry booking through Bologna Welcome’s website rather than walk-up access, and a modest ticket price, a few euros for adults with reductions for students and seniors. Until then, admire both towers from street level, which is honestly still striking given how visibly they lean.

The Portico di San Luca deserves its reputation as the longest covered walkway in the world, nearly 3.8 kilometers of arches climbing from the city center to the hilltop Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca. Walking the whole thing is a genuine undertaking, closer to an hour of steady uphill walking than a casual stroll, but it’s covered the entire way, which is exactly why it was built: so that a religious icon, and the pilgrims following it, could move between the city and the sanctuary without exposure to weather. Do it in the morning before the heat sets in if you’re visiting in summer.

The University of Bologna’s Archiginnasio building, the university’s original historic seat, houses an anatomical theater from the 1600s carved entirely in wood, complete with a flayed-figure sculpture holding up the lecturer’s canopy. It’s small, slightly macabre, and one of the more genuinely surprising sights in the city precisely because it isn’t heavily marketed.

Eating, Which Is the Real Point of Visiting

Skip generic “best of Bologna” restaurant lists and head straight for the Quadrilatero, the old market quarter just east of Piazza Maggiore, which has been Bologna’s food market for centuries and still functions as one, not a tourist recreation of one. Osteria Bottega on Via Santa Caterina is frequently cited by people who take their tortellini seriously as the closest thing to the definitive version, made in brodo, the traditional way, rather than dressed up with cream sauces for visitors. Salumeria Simoni, right in the market itself, is a solid stop for cured meats and a simpler lunch if you want to eat standing at a counter surrounded by actual grocery shopping happening around you.

My opinion, and it’s a strong one: if a restaurant near Piazza Maggiore has a laminated multilingual menu and photos of the food outside, walk past it. The good places in this city rarely need to advertise that hard. Mortadella from a proper salumeria, thin-sliced and slightly warm, is a better lunch than most sit-down meals you’ll pay three times as much for.

Where to Stay

The area immediately around Piazza Maggiore and the Quadrilatero puts you within walking distance of everything, but it’s also the most expensive and can get noisy late into the evening near the university district, where student nightlife runs later than the rest of the city might suggest. If you want quieter nights, look toward the area near Via Zamboni’s edges or slightly south toward Santo Stefano, both still an easy walk from the center but with less foot traffic after dark. Budget travelers do well at the handful of hostels scattered through the university quarter, which trade a bit of noise for genuinely central locations at a fraction of hotel prices.

Things Worth Knowing Before You Go

The porticoes, over 60 kilometers of them across the city, are Bologna’s defining architectural feature and a genuinely practical one: you can walk most of the historic center in a downpour without an umbrella. Use them, that’s what they’re for, rather than treating them purely as photo backdrops.

Italian is the practical language here even more than in Florence or Rome; English coverage among younger service staff is decent but drops off quickly outside the center, and learning basic pleasantries goes further here than in more heavily touristed cities where staff have heard every possible mangled Italian a thousand times over.

Tipping isn’t the ritual it is in the US. Restaurant bills typically include a modest cover charge (coperto) rather than a service percentage, and rounding up or leaving a few euros for excellent service is appreciated but not expected. Electricity runs on the standard Italian Type F plug at 230V, so bring an adaptor if you’re coming from outside continental Europe.

The climate swings more than people expect for a city this far north in Italy: humid, genuinely hot summers and damp, cold winters, with the porticoes doing double duty as shelter from both extremes. Pack layers regardless of season, Bologna’s weather shifts faster than the forecast tends to suggest.

A Few Honest Final Notes

Watch your belongings around the main station and busy market lanes during peak shopping hours, the usual pickpocket advice for any dense Italian city center applies here too, though violent crime against visitors is rare. Book major sights with online timed slots wherever they’re offered, especially anything University-run, since walk-up queues in peak months can eat an hour you’d rather spend eating. And if you only do one thing beyond the food, walk the full length of the San Luca portico at least one way; the view back over the red rooftops from the sanctuary steps is worth the climb, and it’s free.