If you've still not booked your summer holiday don't despair – Adam Architecture's design director recommends the delights of Bologna's restaurants and walkways in equal measure
Dear Readers,
Having had the indecent luck to win two Rome Scholarships in my youth and enjoy two years of the 'dolce vita', I can not recommend Bologna enough to anyone who loves Italy but who longs to get off the usual tourist trail. Situated between the Apennine mountains to the south and the wide fertile plains of the mighty River Po to the north, the city enjoys a fortunate and naturally strategic position. Visiting there recently with the Worshipful Company of Carpenters, our senior warden, Loyd Grossman, helped us to search out memorable family run restaurants offering the finest Italian cuisine produced from bountiful and delicious local ingredients. Almost immediately the need to go clothes shopping became acute: my wardrobe, mysteriously, appeared to have shrunk in transit.
The medieval Due Torri remind us that Bologna is an ancient and prosperous city. It boasts the oldest university in the Western world and was an early centre for the scientific study of medicine. The atmospheric Teatro Anatomico is well worth a visit. As the popularity of the university grew, local families extended their houses over the pavements to create additional rooms to rent out to students. In some areas, such as the Ghetto, early examples of these extensions survive with timber posts supporting accommodation on the upper floors. In time these structures were replaced by the elegant masonry arcades which are now the key defining feature of the city centre and adorn almost very street.
Aside from meeting the needs of young scholars, these tall, airy arcades perform a practical function too, creating shady, breezy streets during the hot steamy days of summer, and protection from the rain in less clement conditions during the winter months. One can walk continuously under cover from the central Piazza Maggiore and Piazza Del Nettuno, with its famous risqué statue of the eponymous sea god, to the Santuario Madonna di San Luca on high ground to the south west of the city centre. On arrival one is rewarded with glorious panoramic views over this recently confirmed UNESCO World Heritage site and its dramatic hinterland, and a commendably high step count to help work off the temptation that presents itself with every meal.
Bologna is the perfect centre too for visiting other small cities up and down the Po valley, including Parma, Modena, Ravenna, Rimini and Mantova. Buon divertimento!
Hugh Petter is a design director at ADAM Architecture
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