Bologna is the capital of this prosperous region of Italy. Not yet contaminated by mass tourism, the city is the ideal choice for cultural interludes as well as leisure activities and relaxation.
Bologna has a number of nicknames: la dotta (the learned) for its ancient university, la rossa (the red) for the warm colour of its roofs and houses, and la grassa (the fat) for the wonderful food.
BOLOGNA - City of Arts :
 PIAZZA MAGGIORE This square has been the heart of Bologna for 2500 years. And it really is a heart, because the people of Bologna don't merely go “to town” like other Italians would; they "go to the piazza". This airy, open space is lined with the city's most important buildings: Palazzo d’Accursio, the seat of the city council; Palazzo Re Enzo; Palazzo del Podestà; the majestic Basilica of San Petronio; the elegant Fountain of Neptune; Palazzo dei Notai; and the imposing Palazzo de’ Banchi..
PALAZZO ACCURSIO Made up of buildings which cover 300 years of the city's lively history, from 1200 to 1500, this complex is the prestigious seat of the city's governing body and its majestic halls are decorated with works of enchanting beauty
THE SALA BORSA At the end of the nineteenth century, after the removal of the Cardinal's private gardens, this area was occupied by the splendid Stock Exchange in Art Nouveau style, elements of which we can still admire today. The glass floor makes it possible for visitors to view remains of the great Roman city of Bononia
PALAZZO RE ENZO The city's sinister medieval prisons. Two seventeenth-century gallows betray the cruelty of a time when there was no such thing as a pardon.
FOUNTAIN OF NEPTUNE The symbol of sixteenth-century elegance, the clear waters of this fountain  were never intended to quench the thirst of the Bolognesi but gushed forth instead in celebration of the power of the Pope.
BASILICA OF SAN PETRONIO The building of this majestic church of indescribable charm was begun in 1390. Its façade, which was never completed, features the sweetness of the Madonnina by Jacopo della Quercia, while masterpieces of Italian art in paintings, sculptures, and glass from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance may be found inside the basilica itself. There is also a Time Machine, a sundial whose accuracy and charm still amaze people today.
THE MEDIEVAL MARKET AND THE LOGGIA DEI MERCANTI Through the busy narrow alleyways of the market we reach the Palazzo that was the seat of the merchants' association. Built in the fourteenth century, its gothic style still attracts
 THE TWO TOWERS Two, two hundred, the “forest of stone”. This is Bologna and her legendary towers. Our itinerary comes to an end at the foot of these symbols of Bologna, which have watched benevolently over the city since the Middle Ages.
SAN GIACOMO AND THE ORATORY OF SANTA CECILIA An old thirteenth-century church midway between the Romanesque and the gothic and featuring a huge number of works of extraordinary importance. Time has set the little Oratory of Santa Cecilia here, today considered Bologna's “Sistine Chapel” for the beauty of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century pictorial cycle with which the walls are decorated.
SAN DOMENICO 1000 extraordinary works are preserved in this church. It contains one of the most beautiful inlaid wooden choir stalls in the world, while the thirteenth-century tomb of the saint, enriched and completed in the 1500s by the matchless work of Michelangelo, dominates everything.
National Park of the Gessi bolognesi and of the Calanchi d’Abbadessa: Situated in the hills surrounding Bologna and characterized by a series of gypsum outcroppings from which a very interesting karst system and the suggestive Calanchi dell'Abbadessa have derived. Although they were damaged by mining activity in the past, the gessi bolognesi represent one of the main naturalistic points of interest of the area, with dolines, closed valleys, and cliffs shaping the landscape and populated by Mediterranean species and species living at higher altitudes.
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