Great digs in Bologna
Submitted: October 4, 2012
Stayed: September 2012
We spent 12 delightful days in Bologna based in Antonio's great apartment. From our arrival when Anto's father met us at the street entrance and helped move our luggage into the elevator and the apartment, to the warm welcome from both parents, to Antonio's close contact and efforts to make sure we had everything we needed, the visit went flawlessly. Antonio even arranged to make sure we would have a taxi at the door precisely on time for our departure, since we didn't want to have to chance a miscommunication with the taxi company given our inability to speak Italian beyond a few words. The apartment itself was spotless and quite modern, especially for Bologna, a city of old buildings. The location was perfect for our purposes: some days we just explored Bologna on foot, including a cooking class; other days we walked to the train station to explore nearby cities -- Verona, Ravenna and Ferrara -- or were picked up for trips to Parma, Modena and another day to Dozza (a really pleasant surprise, highly recommended and not found in most tour guides). A couple of points maybe not made in other reviews: to walk to the train station, we highly recommend going to via Donato Creti (turn LEFT on Stalingrado to the corner, then left) to Giacomo Matteotti and across that bridge to the station, instead of going over the via Stalingrado since the walk is much nicer and the bridge not nearly as steep. Also, there weren't any Bolognese restaurants in the immediate vicinity, but it was easy to walk over the Staliingrado bridge to the city center for a great variety of wonderful restaurants (we could have taken a bus right on via Stalingrado but didn't bother), and home after dinner by taxi -- all of the drivers were very familiar with "Stalingrado vente" and drove right to the door. If you do eat in the neighborhood, we found Haiku (with as many Chinese food items on the menu as Japanese) at the corner to be very good and our neighborhood favorite. Lidl supermarket, a block away, has all the food supplies you'll need during your stay at very reasonable prices. All in all, we have no hesitation about highly recommending Al Tortellino for your Bologna visit.
Helpful votes: 3/3
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