Bologna: “La Dotta, La Rossa, La Grassa”

by Laura Blanc de Silva on 12/04/13

At the end of August, and after spending some days in Rome, we decided to visit Bologna. A friend has told us that it was one of the most welcoming cities in Italy; however it is not enlisted as one of the most popular cities in the guidebooks. We love “welcoming cities”, so we gave a try!

We took one of the fastest Trenitalia trains and in three hours we arrived in Bologna, better known by the Italians as “La Dotta, La Rossa, La Grassa” (“the educated, the red, the fat”) . “Educated” is for the city’s university, the oldest in the western world; “Red” refers both to the red bricks that most of Bologna’s historic buildings and porticoes are made from, and to the city’s history of leftist (read communist) politics. And “fat”, of course, is for Bologna’s culinary tradition.

It is one most beautiful city we have been to. Bologna’s historic centre has been beautifully maintained, and we enjoyed exploring it on foot. As we went in August, it was not full of tourists, so we wandered around, enjoyed the view and ate!  Bologna has innumerable streets that are worth visiting, each has something to catch the tourist’s attention. The streets are so narrow, that cars do not pass through.  The main means of transportation in the downtown area are bicycles. Less pollution and more exercise! A curiosity in Bologna are its porches that can be seen everywhere, it rains a lot, especially in autumn and spring, so it is a must to carry an umbrella, or seek protection under their beautiful and unique frames.

Its famous University of Bologna embraces a lot of foreign students that mingled with tourists from all over and people who come and go from their jobs. It has museums to explore, churches and beautiful places to visit. In the historic, center we visited La Piazza Maggiore, and the Basilica di San Petronio. When visiting new places, we always love to engage in conversations with the locals. They mentioned to us that the Basilica has a shocking piece of architecture and art inside worth seeing, an ancient and controversial painting that shows Mohammed burning in inferno. The painting has been subject to considerable threats terrorists and is well maintained. There are a large number of Roman ruins under the city that did not allow building a metro.

Tomorrow we are heading from Bologna Centrale (train station) to Florence, only a 40 minutes train ride! But that is another story.