The Ultimate Guide to Bologna, Italy: History, Food, Nightlife, and Attractions

hi there and welcome today we're taking a little break from Abruzzo to take an in-depth look at the beautiful city of Bologna Italy in this video we'll talk about everything we're going to talk about how to get to and get around bologna we'll talk about her history and culture and we'll also talk about what to see and what to eat while you're here so stick around this video's got everything the only thing missing is you [Music] thank you hi and welcome back bologna is a really fun city with lots to do and it's also fun to walk around the medieval architecture porticos and narrow streets make you feel like you're inside a fortress or a castle that is a castle with lots of bars and good food inside bologna is a cool University Town with about 400 000 residents situated among gentle Rolling Hills and the bucolic Amelia romagna region in this video we'll talk about the history of Bologna its culture what to see when you visit and what to eat you know when people vacation in Italy they often skip over bologna opting to go from Florence OR Rome directly to Venice I think that's a huge mistake and I hope after this video you'll consider stopping by to check this place out bologna is connected to most major Italian cities by High-Speed Rail and it has its own airport connecting it to Major European capitals so it's easy to get to and then the city itself is also easy to get around the city center is actually quite small so if you're in good health then you can walk pretty much anywhere and city buses and bike and scooter renting apps can also take you around town or even further afield and one last thing before we get going uh I want to make sure did you know that I have a page that provides resources for connecting with Italy on jtlancy.com Italy you'll find free resources and special offers for things like learning or improving your Italian visiting Italy getting citizenship by descent and lots more just go to jtlancy.com Italy or you can follow the link in the description below so back to Bologna and we'll start with our history bologna is a city with a truly fascinating past and I could probably make tons of videos just about Bologna's history bologna or at least the area around her has been inhabited since the Iron Age and it was a part of the intra the Etruscan civilization before the territory was conquered by Rome the Romans established their colony called benonia in 189 BC but to the Romans it was just another minor provincial City now the medieval period is when bologna really came into its own and got interesting in 1088 the first University in Europe was founded right here in Bologna that's the University of Bologna which is still in operation today the city also became famous for its fine silk work and it became one of Europe's most important and influential commercial capitals bologna is landlocked but an ingenious system of dams locks and underground cisterns designed to leech water from the soil fed a system of canals that moved merchandise and powered Factory Looms and folks it's worth noting they were doing this in the 13th and 14th centuries well before the start of the Industrial Revolution in 1257 bologna also became the first city in the world to ban slavery bologna was a city way ahead of its time but it wasn't all love and sunshine the tensions between the guelphs and the gibblins fueled a conflict in the city noble families began erecting towers that they could used as a sort of a safe room in the event of an attack from their Rivals these towers though they just kept getting taller and taller until the city began to resemble a medieval version of Manhattan at some point the height of Any Given Tower became a symbol of that family's wealth and Prestige which only made the towers grow higher stretching the science of architecture to its you know its material limits there is a actual physical limit to how tall you can build something with brick and The Bolognese discovered exactly how tall that was there was also the Guerra de la secia repita or the war of the stolen bucket in 1325. this was a war consisting of a single battle between bologna and the neighboring city of Modena in which the Bolognese were thoroughly beaten by the moderna's despite their army outnumbering the moderna's by almost four to one The Bolognese fled back to their City wall and the modern is not needing to draw out the conflict searched around the outside of the city gates for any War trophy they could find the modern is settled on an ordinary wooden bucket from a well and claimed that as their War trophy the bucket by the way is still rumored to be kept in modernist torreichivica to this day all right so now let's talk a bit about Bologna's culture the university contributes a great deal and creates a much younger scene in Bologna than you'll find in most other Italian cities bologna is chock full of little bars and places to grab cocktails and you can go to most any Piazza late at night and find people hanging out the city is also known for having an excellent Jazz scene and the place is full of live jazz clubs and of course there are annual art festivals and film festivals the city even hosts a festival called smell dedicated to the art of perfumery bologna is sometimes said to have three names means the educated and it refers to a university la grasana means the well-fed and is she ever bologna is known throughout Italy for exceptional food imagine a city with food so good that Italians leave their own home cities to eat there bologna is famous for mortadella piedena tortellini but we're getting ahead of ourselves we'll talk all about food in a little bit for now let's talk about Bologna's third and final name La Rosa or the red this name comes from the distinctive shade of red that colors bolognas tiled roofs it's a unique pigmentation of the local clay that makes the tiles that particular color of red and you'll find it used everywhere around town there are also some people that say the red is a reference to Bologna's Politics as the city was a political stronghold for Italian communist movements throughout the 20th century even today the city is still gummed up every so often by student protests but the the radical politics of yesterday just don't play nearly the role here that they used to okay and now let's talk about what to see in Bologna and boy is there a lot the first thing I would encourage you to check out is Piazza majore this is the city's main Piazza and besides being beautiful there are a number of things to see directly from The Piazza on the south end of The Piazza you'll find the Basilica di San petronio an enormous Gothic Cathedral with 22 chapels inside it you'll uh you'll notice that the facade has been left unfinished and there's actually a complicated story behind it after centuries of starting and stopping construction the underlying brick of that Cathedral has weathered such that the original attachment points for New Marble can no longer be used and engineering studies for how best to fix this problem well they've been going on for at least the last 40 years now lining the western side of the Piazza is palazzo de accursio which is acted as Bologna's City Hall since Medieval Times to the north is another medieval Palazzo that dedicated to public administration and that's called the Palazzo Del podesta this Palazzo has a central Breezeway that contains shops and at the center you'll find whisper arches where the Acoustics are just right and you're you can whisper secrets back and forth with someone standing on the other side caddy cornered from you between Palazzo de corsio and Palazzo Del podesta you'll find Bologna's glorious Fountain to Neptune the Roman god of the sea if you remember earlier we mentioned that medieval bologna was a commercial Powerhouse that odids might to an ingenious system of canals that made the landlocked City rich with water this 16th century Fountain by Pierre Donato cheesy in the form of Neptune celebrates Bologna's conquest of water hey and speaking of Bologna's conquest of water you may want to swing by the finestra DI via piela a window that offers tantalizing glimpses of the canal De le Moline but of course one of the coolest things to do in Bologna is simply to walk around under its porticos you know that there are 38 kilometers or 23 miles of porticos and Bologna's historic City Center and each block is Rich with frescoes mosaics and masonry work that you can just look at for hours of course if you're in Piazza Majora then you're only a stone's throw away from remember how the Nobles and medieval bologna built all those Towers to protect themselves and show off their wealth and prestige well a number of them are still standing of the up to 180 towers that are estimated to have existed in medieval times 22 are still here today and two of them are in their own Piazza just down the street from Piazza majora of these two the taller one is the tallest thing in the historic City Center and stands at a height of 97 meters or 319 feet if you're feeling energetic then you can pay a few bucks to climb the 498 steps to the top of the tower and enjoy an amazing view of the city be careful if you're a student though according to local Superstition if you climb the tower before graduating then you'll never finish your degree and speaking of climbs another fun climb is the porticoat steps leading up to the santuario de la Madonna di San Luca located out to the southwest of the city center the 489 steps pass under the longest Portico in the world stretching for four kilometers or 2.5 miles and containing 15 chapels among its 660 or so arches and this is just a silly note if like me you latched on immediately to that number 660 with the 66 at the front and you're wondering if there's some weird occult thing going on with the number of arches the fact of the matter is that there is not an actual agreement as to exactly how many arches there are if you go to different sources they'll give you slightly different numbers but they're all in that 660 range the reason why nobody agrees on how many arches there are is because there's some debate about exactly when the series of porticos begins uh do you count the Arches on the steps that lead up to the access point to the portacode the account the last couple of arches as you're exiting the Portico and entering onto over the property line into the uh so they're as as best I can tell there's no funny business there that's uh it's just difficult to come up with an actual tally of how many archers there really are in total but anyway back to the porticos The Climb is quite literally a pilgrimage that takes you up to the top of a hill where you'll find this santuario de la Madonna di San Luca which is a baroque Basilica with beautiful views of the surrounding Countryside also don't miss the archegenazio de bologna this building was once the seat of the University of bologna and contains the famous anatomical theater where Renaissance Scholars studied the human body and learned medicine it also contains Bologna's public library and this place just has to be seen to be believed all the style and intellectual prowess of the Renaissance is on Full display inside the Library and so after climbing a thousand or so steps between the towers and porticos and putting your nose to the books in the library you'll probably have worked up an appetite luckily there's pretty much no better place on Earth to eat than bologna now bologna is the birthplace of many Famous Foods like tortellini lasagna and ragua LA bolene but as any Italian will tell you you haven't really had any of those dishes until you've tried them here in Bologna if you find yourself in town on a rainy day or you just want to be wowed by the depth of flavor you can experience from a humble meal then I recommend tortellinian broth uh which in Italian they call tortellini I also very much recommend trying the Mortadella here if you've never heard of matadala it's roughly similar to the deli meat we call bologna in the United States but saying they're the same thing would be like saying a porterhouse steak is the same thing as the stacums that they they used in high school to make Philly cheesesteaks they're just not in the same category if you want the good stuff then look for the most bologna EGP that's Mortadella Bologna igp of course you'll need something to eat that Mortadella on so you may want to grab the next food our little Medallion shaped buns somewhere between bread a country style biscuit and a pancake they're really good and you can find them at lots of little trattorillas in Bologna served alongside italiere or charcuterie of local meats and cheeses you use the to Jet Lite and make little sandwiches sampling the local meats and cheeses as you go and in Bologna it would be nearly Unthinkable to serve Italian without putting Mortadella in with the various Meats bologna is also famous for its piadine a piadina is a special bread traditionally made with lard that is prepared fresh and folded into a sandwich there are dozens of combinations of ingredients to put inside the bread everything from spec and provolone cheese to Nutella they're regarded almost as a street food and can be found pretty much anywhere in Bologna oh and did I mention that bologna is home of the ragua labonies you may know this as bolognese sauce but if you've never had it in Bologna then there's no way of telling what kind of imposter sauce and they've been passed off on you once you've tried the real deal I guarantee that will become the standard against which you measure any other sauce of course you'll need to put the sauce on something so why not go with the classic you can find Talia teles on most menus and you shouldn't leave bologna without giving it a try for those vegetarians out there it is increasingly common to find restaurants in Bologna that have some kind of variation on the ragua LA boleniense that is vegetarian or even vegan now if you're looking for a truly rich flavor then I recommend trying or a Bolognese style cutlet this is a breaded and pan-fried veal cutlet that is served with a beef and parmigiana cheese Gravy Sauce sorry that's just about the best way I could think of to translate it into English it's a thick sauce the consistency of a roux or a gravy but it's uh the the base stocks all our beef and parmigiana cheese this is a heavier dish so this is great if you have if you're traveling in a big group of people or like with light with your family and you're looking for a big sit-down Sunday meal that will satiate everybody and so there you have it bologna is an amazing city with a rich culinary tradition a fascinating history a great cultural scene and it's easy to get to to boot thank you for joining me on this exploration of the criminally underrated beautiful red city of Bologna please be sure to like subscribe and comment and I'll see you next time

Channel: JT for Italy

Views: 86,138

Keywords: Italy, travel, travel guide, walking tour, food, attractions, travel ideas, bologna, bologna italy, italy travel, italian culture, history

Id: xhpWqT5Etkk

Length: 21min 34sec (1294 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 22 2023