Emilia-Romagna

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Overview of medieval cityscape of historic Bologna.

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Overview

Sweeping north from the Apennines to the fertile Po valley, Emilia-Romagna boasts some of Italy’s most hospitable people, some of its most productive land, some of its fastest vehicles (Ferrari, Ducati, Maserati and Lamborghini call Emilia-Romagna home) and most soul-satisfying food. Since antiquity, the verdant Po lowlands have sown enough agricultural riches to feed a nation and finance an unending production line of lavish products: luxury cars, regal palazzi (mansions), Romanesque churches, prosperous towns and a gigantic operatic legacy (Verdi and Pavarotti, no less).

Attractions

Must-see attractions

Castello Estense

Ferrara

Complete with moat and drawbridge, Ferrara's towering castle was commissioned by Nicolò II d'Este in 1385. Initially it was intended to protect him and…

Casa di Lucio Dalla

Bologna

The 15th-century Palazzo Casa Fontana poi Gamberini – the fascinating, pricier-than-the-Colosseum home of eccentric Italian singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla …

Basilica di Santo Stefano

Bologna

Bologna's most unique religious site is this atmospheric labyrinth of interlocking ecclesiastical structures, whose architecture spans centuries of…

Basilica di San Petronio

Bologna

Bologna's hulking Gothic basilica is Europe's sixth-largest church, measuring 132m by 66m by 47m. Work began on it in 1390, but it was never finished, and…

Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica di Bologna

Bologna

This mouthful of a museum inside Palazzo Sanguinetti – the former home of Napoleon's Italian minister – chronicles six centuries of European musical…

Modena, Italy - July 9, 2022: Vehicles and exteriors of the Ferrari Museum in Italy
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Museo Ferrari

Emilia-Romagna

Each year, hundreds of thousands of petrolheads make the pilgrimage to this museum in Maranello, Ferrari's home town. They come here to obsess over the…

Basilica di Sant'Apollinare in Classe

Ravenna

This signature early Christian basilica, lighter than Ravenna's other churches, is situated 5km southeast of town in the former Roman port of Classe. Its…

Battistero

Parma

Overshadowing even the cathedral, the octagonal pink-marble baptistery on the south side of the piazza is one of the most important such structures in…

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