Emilia-Romagna: Bologna, Modena, Parma and Ravenna

1. Day 1: Arrive in Bologna

   Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport or Bologna Centrale station to your hotel in the centre

   • Drive about 15 min
   • Welcome dinner with wine
   • Stay in Bologna
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ), about 20 minutes from the centre, or arrive by train at Bologna Centrale. We meet you at either and take you to a central hotel within about 10 minutes' walk of Piazza Maggiore. Plan to arrive by about 4 pm; the exact latest arrival is confirmed with your final itinerary. In the early evening your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing on the week, then an easy first walk under the porticoes, the covered walkways that line Bologna's streets and were listed by UNESCO in 2021. We cross Piazza Maggiore as the lights come on around the Basilica of San Petronio and Giambologna's Fountain of Neptune, and look up at the Two Towers, the tall Asinelli and the leaning Garisenda. Then we sit down together to a welcome dinner at a trattoria: tagliatelle al ragù, the dish the rest of the world calls bolognese, with a glass of local wine.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ) or Bologna Centrale station
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Evening walk: the porticoes, Piazza Maggiore, the Fountain of Neptune and the Two Towers
   • Welcome dinner with wine

   Free time: Free until the early evening briefing

   Activity: About an hour on foot on flat streets.

   

2. Day 2: The Quadrilatero market and a pasta class

   Bologna on foot: the Quadrilatero, the Mercato delle Erbe and a cooking school

   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Bologna
   Day 2 details

   Bologna's old market quarter, the Quadrilatero, sits just east of Piazza Maggiore, and at 9 am its narrow lanes are already busy: Via Pescherie Vecchie, Via Drapperie and Via Clavature, where delis hang hams over the counters and fishmongers set out the Adriatic catch. With a local food guide we taste as we go: mortadella sliced thin, Parmigiano Reggiano at different ages, and warm tigelle, the small local flatbreads. We look in at the Mercato delle Erbe, the covered market where people from the neighbourhood do their shopping, then walk to a cooking school for a hands-on pasta class. A sfoglina, one of the cooks who roll pasta by hand, shows you how to work egg dough with a long rolling pin until you can almost see the board through it, then cut tagliatelle and fold tortellini. Lunch is what you make, with a glass of Pignoletto or Lambrusco. The afternoon and evening are free to rest, shop or follow your guide's list of osterie.

   Included

   • Quadrilatero market walk with a local food guide and tastings of mortadella, Parmigiano Reggiano and tigelle
   • The Mercato delle Erbe
   • Hands-on pasta class: tagliatelle and tortellini
   • Lunch with wine at the cooking school

   Free time: Afternoon and evening free

   Activity: About 2 hours on foot in the morning, then about 3 hours standing at the pasta class with a seated lunch. The market lanes are quiet on Sundays, so day 2 never falls on one.

   

3. Day 3: Parmigiano at dawn, balsamic in the attic, Modena

   Bologna to a dairy and an acetaia in the Modena countryside, then Modena and back

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Bologna
   Day 3 details

   Today starts early for a reason: Parmigiano Reggiano is made in the morning, and the moment to see it is between about 8 and 10 am, when the cheesemakers lift the curd from copper vats. We leave Bologna at 7:30 for a dairy in the Modena countryside, about 45 minutes away, and watch the curd from a vat of about 1,100 litres of milk split in two, one wheel each, wrapped in cloth and set in moulds. Then we walk the ageing rooms, where wheels rest for at least 12 months, and taste cheese of different ages. Late morning we visit a family acetaia, where traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena ages for at least 12 years in a row of barrels of different woods, usually under the roof, where summer heat and winter cold do the work. Lunch is at a trattoria in Modena, with tortellini, gnocco fritto and Lambrusco. Afterwards a local guide walks you through Piazza Grande, the Romanesque cathedral begun in 1099 and its Ghirlandina tower, listed together by UNESCO in 1997. We are back in Bologna by about 5:30 pm, and the evening is free.

   Included

   • Parmigiano Reggiano dairy visit while the cheese is made, with a tasting
   • Family acetaia visit with a tasting of traditional balsamic vinegar
   • Trattoria lunch in Modena with wine
   • Modena with a local guide: Piazza Grande, the Duomo and the Ghirlandina

   Optional experiences

   • The Museo Enzo Ferrari in Modena, in place of the afternoon walk (ticket and taxi paid locally; we confirm it can be arranged when you book)

   Easier option: Sit out the afternoon walk with a coffee in Piazza Grande; the cathedral is a few steps away.

   Free time: Evening free in Bologna

   Activity: The only early start of the trip: 7:30 am, because the cheese is made in the morning. Dairy floors are wet, so wear shoes with grip. About 1.5 hours on foot in Modena.

   

4. Day 4: Bologna on foot

   Bologna: San Petronio, the Archiginnasio, Santo Stefano and the Two Towers

   • Breakfast
   • Stay in Bologna
   Day 4 details

   A slower day in the city. At 9:30 a local guide takes the group through the Bologna most visitors rush past: the Basilica of San Petronio, whose brick facade was never finished and whose floor carries a meridian line laid out by the astronomer Giovanni Cassini in 1655; the Archiginnasio, the 16th-century seat of the university, its walls covered in students' coats of arms, with a wooden Anatomical Theatre where lessons were given on the human body; and the seven linked churches of Santo Stefano, whose origins go back to the 5th century. We finish at the foot of the Two Towers around midday. Lunch is your choice: your guide gives you a list of places, from a mortadella sandwich in the market lanes to a bowl of tortellini in brodo at an old osteria. The afternoon and evening are free. If you want a walk, the portico to the Sanctuary of San Luca climbs from Porta Saragozza under 666 arches, about 3.8 km, often called the longest portico in the world.

   Included

   • Bologna with a local guide: the Basilica of San Petronio and its meridian line, the Archiginnasio and the Anatomical Theatre, the churches of Santo Stefano and the Two Towers

   Easier option: Stay on the flat in the centre after the walk; the city is easy to explore under the porticoes, rain or sun.

   More active option: Walk the San Luca portico, about 3.8 km and a steady climb from Porta Saragozza to the sanctuary, with views over the city and the hills; come back down by taxi.

   Free time: Afternoon and evening free

   Activity: About 2.5 hours on foot in the morning on flat streets.

   

5. Day 5: To Parma: Correggio's dome and Antelami's Baptistery

   Bologna to Parma

   • Drive about 1.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Parma
   Day 5 details

   We leave Bologna at about 10 am and drive an hour and a quarter west across the plain, alongside the Via Emilia, the Roman road that still ties the region's cities together, to Parma, where we stay two nights in the centre. Parma was named a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy in 2015, and lunch at a trattoria near the old centre makes the case: anolini in brodo, small filled pasta in broth, or tortelli d'erbetta with butter and Parmigiano, and a glass of Malvasia or Lambrusco. In the afternoon, once the churches reopen, a local guide takes you into Piazza Duomo. The octagonal Baptistery of pink Verona marble was begun in 1196 by Benedetto Antelami, and inside his carved months of the year show the farm work you saw at the dairy. In the cathedral, Correggio's Assumption of the Virgin, painted between about 1526 and 1530, swirls up into the dome. The evening is free. Your ticket for the Palazzo della Pilotta and its wooden Teatro Farnese is good today or tomorrow; the Pilotta closes one day a week, so we set the dates for it to be open on at least one of the two.

   Included

   • Drive from Bologna to Parma with your guide
   • Trattoria lunch in Parma with wine
   • Parma with a local guide: the Baptistery and the Duomo with Correggio's dome
   • Ticket for the Palazzo della Pilotta and the Teatro Farnese, to use in your free time on day 5 or 6

   Free time: Morning in Bologna until 10 am; evening free in Parma

   Activity: About 2 hours on foot in Parma on flat streets.

   

6. Day 6: Prosciutto in the hills, culatello by the Po

   Parma to Langhirano, then the Bassa Parmense and back

   • Drive about 2.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Parma
   Day 6 details

   Two of Italy's great cured hams come from either side of Parma, and today we visit both. First we drive about half an hour south into the hills to Langhirano, where dry air coming down from the Apennines made the town the centre of Prosciutto di Parma. At a ham house the producer walks you through the process: Italian pork legs, sea salt and nothing else, then more than a year of curing in long rooms whose windows were once opened and shut by hand to follow the weather, and the horse-bone needle the inspectors use to smell each ham. A tasting follows. Then we cross the plain north to the Bassa Parmense, the flat, often foggy farmland along the Po and home of Culatello di Zibello, cut from the best muscle of the leg, tied in a bladder and aged in damp cellars. Lunch is at the table of a culatello maker or a trattoria in the Bassa, with Fortana or Lambrusco. We are back in Parma by about 4 pm, with the rest of the day free.

   Included

   • Prosciutto di Parma ham house in Langhirano with a tasting
   • Culatello cellar visit in the Bassa Parmense
   • Lunch with culatello and wine in the Bassa Parmense

   More active option: Use your Pilotta ticket in the late afternoon for the Teatro Farnese and the National Gallery, or walk the Parco Ducale across the river.

   Free time: Late afternoon and evening free in Parma

   Activity: Mostly standing in cool ageing rooms and cellars; bring a layer.

   

7. Day 7: The Ravenna mosaics, back to Bologna

   Parma to Ravenna, then Ravenna to Bologna

   • Drive about 3.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Bologna
   Day 7 details

   The longest drive of the trip, about three and a quarter hours in two legs, buys a full day in Ravenna, capital of the Western Roman Empire in its last decades and later the seat of Byzantine rule in Italy. We leave Parma at 8 am and drive about two and a quarter hours east on the motorway, with a coffee stop, reaching Ravenna by about 10:30. Eight of the city's early Christian monuments were listed by UNESCO in 1996, and with a local guide we see four of them. First the gold processions of martyrs and virgins in Sant'Apollinare Nuovo and the dome of the Neonian Baptistery. Lunch is Romagna food: piadina, cappelletti and a glass of Sangiovese. In the afternoon, in a booked time slot, the Basilica of San Vitale, where the emperor Justinian and the empress Theodora face each other across the apse, and the small Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, its blue vault scattered with gold stars. We pass Dante's tomb, then drive an hour back to Bologna for a farewell dinner.

   Included

   • Ravenna with a local guide: Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, the Neonian Baptistery, the Basilica of San Vitale and the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, with the Ravenna mosaics ticket
   • Dante's tomb
   • Lunch in Ravenna with wine
   • Farewell dinner in Bologna with wine

   Easier option: Skip the Neonian Baptistery and wait in a cafe in Piazza del Popolo before lunch.

   Activity: About 2.5 hours on foot in Ravenna on flat streets, with time seated in the van either side.

   

8. Day 8: A last morning in Bologna, then home

   Bologna to Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport or Bologna Centrale station

   • Drive about 15 min
   • Breakfast
   Day 8 details

   The last morning is yours. Have a final cappuccino under the porticoes, or go back to the Quadrilatero for mortadella, Parmigiano or a small bottle of balsamic to take home. Vacuum-packed cheese travels well, but Canada and the United States each have their own rules on bringing meat products home, so check before you buy the ham. After breakfast transfers leave from the hotel for Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ), about 20 minutes away, or for Bologna Centrale station, where fast trains reach Florence in about 40 minutes, Milan in about an hour, Venice in about an hour and a half and Rome in a little over two hours. If you want more time, for a day in Ferrara or a longer stay in Bologna itself, ask us and we add nights at the same hotel before your trip ends. Your guide checks your onward plans with you the evening before and sees the group off.

   Included

   • Drop-off at Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ) or Bologna Centrale station

   Free time: Morning free

   Activity: Book a flight from Bologna after about 11 am, or from Milan or Rome after about 3 pm.

Wildlife and weather: Spring and autumn are mild and the best time for walking the cities. July and August are hot and humid on the Po plain, and many family restaurants and some producers close for a week or two around 15 August. From November to February fog often lies on the plain; it is part of what makes culatello, but it can slow the drives.

• Bologna4 nights
• Parma2 nights
• Bologna1 night