Smaller than Florence, but beautifully formed. I knew little about it before going.
The off the cuff impression from friends was food capital of Italy. Stanley Tucci on steroids. Nicknamed La Grassa (the fat one - the City, not Stanley, who is reprehensibly thin). Wave arrividerci to any recent healthy eating improvements.
The first-hand thumbnail is an Italian city boasting a lot more than nosh.
And BA fly there from Heathrow, though Ryanair dominates the route. A quick exit from the airport, which is barely thirty minutes drive from the City centre......but then a 45 minute queue for a taxi - I work on the basis that some part of every overseas journey will be a problem.
Smart folk will question how a quick exit was possible when Brits now have to be fingerprinted, photographed and strip searched before being issued grudgingly with a permit to spend a maximum 90 days in any 180 day period within the EU. Self-important me was ready to waltz through on my Irish passport. No benefit at all - the system has not yet reached Bologna and all arrivals from London were sent through the same channel. As long as the E-gate works on your passport, no problem. Anyway, whenever Paddy Davey has had to tender his EU one, it gets a look as though to say that the holder is technically EU but not proper European.
Staying central for a short City break is the mantra. And we did, sufficiently close to the 5 star Hotel Bagnoli that one could brush past the doorman battling with a dead end street courtesy of the tram tracks being constructed beyond the T junction (where contrary to prejudice the chaps worked into the night and did not down tools at 4.30pm as in London). Also ridiculously nearby was a pasticceria that made you wonder why you ever succumbed to a tired hotel breakfast.
The question always is: 'Where is the centre?', or for some: 'Where is Tourist Information?' .... as the tourist needs to be anointed with a map and a list of cultural highlights.
In Bologna the centre is the Piazza Nettuno, interlocking with the eponymous Piazza Maggiore. The former is dominated by the Fontana Nettuno (Neptune) and the man himself, sculpted by Giambologna in 1556 (get it? - but weirdly he was born in Flanders), and flanked by voluptuous sirens improbably spouting water from their nipples. To cool any potential heterosexual ardour, the guide books recommend a regard of the Neptune appendage from different angles.
After the central piazza, where is the Cathedral? It ought to be the cavernous Basilica di Petronio on the south side of the Piazza Maggiore, but it's not, although the Basilica is described as Bologna's principal church. Quirkily, and I love this about the City, Pope Pius IV stopped a construction that would have generated a church bigger than St Peter's in Rome, in order to divert funds towards a new University - see below. So the dramatic frontage is only part cladded (Verona marble), as if the builders had ran out of money.
But do not be downhearted about Churchy content. Of course there is enough, in quality and quantity, to have the Renaissance junky satisfied. Bologna's trick is to have stand-out elements of interest within its churches.
On a macro scale, there is Santo Stefano (if mentioning it, put the stress on the 'Stef' in order not to sound naff), four interlocking churches described as an ecclesiastical labyrinth, although referred to still hyperbolically as Le Sette Chiese (The Seven Churches), as apparently there were once that number.
On a micro scale, two churches each with a mind-blowing features. The Basilica di San Domenico contains the riotously intricate tomb of St Dominic, carvings completed by a prodigious 19 year-old called Michelangelo. Santa Maria della Vita has The Lamentation of Christ. Life-size terracotta figures , sculpted by Nicolo dell'Arca, surround the body, with expressions of wracked grief. The story is that the church was once part of a religious hospital, and that dell'Arca took the faces of the sick for his inspiration. The composition has a mesmeric quality, although is spoilt by the mincing form of St John the Apostle, who appears to be studying his next move in a chess game.
Back to that Cathedral. It exists. The Cattedrale Metropolitano di San Pietro dates from 1582, but is architecturally and artistically underpowered. This is compounded by the Cathedral now sitting on the Via dell'Independenza, built in 1888 with the highly secular function of linking the centre with the railway station.
I did attend the main Sunday Mass there. It was a reasonable effort, with two priests, six altar servers, a cantor (they couldn't stretch to a choir), and an organist who popped off for a sit down in between duties. Lesson: never raise your hopes too high.
As to the secular, I pick out two highlights. For a wealthy family, building a tower in a Medieval Italian city signified status, as well as providing a watch facility. Bologna has the eponymous Torre Degli Asinelli and Torre Garisenda, standing together on the site of the main gate of the original Roman walls. The two structures are both wondrous and wonky, the Asinelli listing 2.23m to the west and the Garisenda 3.33m to the north-east. The Asinelli can still be climbed - 498 steps - but not with my vertigo.
A couple of minutes up from the Piazza Maggiore is the Palazzo Archiginnasio. Bologna boasts the oldest University in Italy, but the sites were dispersed around the City until brought together here in 1563 as a result of the Pope's diversion of ecclesiastical funds. You see a stunning double loggia courtyard, then wander up a grand staircase to stroll through the corridors and halls. The special factor is that the many memorials commemorate not royal figures or civic dignitaries, but academic masters. A wood-panelled internal amphitheatre comprises the Teatro Anatomico, where (Pope permitting when in the right mood), students and even the public could witness dissections. The aura of the Palazzo makes one regret not having sustained the early achievements of University study.
All this cultural stuff, and I haven't yet got into food and drink. It's a subject on which I am diffident when it comes to writing on travel, as tastes and budgets are subjective. We did not touch a Michelin-starred place, so good luck if that is your thing, but we very much enjoyed Ristorante Da Cesarina on Via Santo Stefano, Trattoria Scaccomato in Via della Braina, and Ristorante Diana on Via Volturno. The latter was a Sunday lunch stop, with two large parties celebrating birthdays. At home that type of company might turn me off if I wanted a quiet meal, but in Italy is joyous.
After dinner, maybe a wander and a digestivo. The bar I Conoscenti would do you very nicely for the latter, and you can take in the local evening crowd enjoying themselves without approaching leglessness. And on the subject of wandering in the evening, we felt very safe, even when Trattoria Scaccomatto turned out to be in a depopulated back street which in a London unfamiliar location might trigger alarm.
And if I broaden the subject of wandering, there is the Bolognese feature that holds the City together in skeletal form and is a suitable conclusion point, the 40km/20 miles (not a misprint ) of porticoes in the City centre. Stroll along, protected from the elements, to take in the high-end fashion outlets (if you must) or just to see nothing in particular but everything in atmosphere to be absorbed.
Definitely get Florence out of the way first, but after that Bologna - a tonic for mind and body..
The author is a writer, speaker, historian, tour guide, and former Managing Partner of a City law firm.