Bologna
Italy
Forty kilometres of arcades, the oldest university in the world, and the food capital Italians actually name
Photo by Petr Slováček on Unsplash
Photos by Ubaldo Bitumi, Arno Senoner, Dan Rooney and Sterling Lanier on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Italy
April to June, and September to October — high summer is humid and half the city closes
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 80mm in Oct
Where it is
44.49°N, 11.34°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
A week easily- Eat your way through the Quadrilatero before lunch
- Climb the Asinelli tower, all 498 steps
- Walk the portico up to San Luca, which is four kilometres uphill and covered
- Take the train to Modena for balsamic and to Parma for ham
- Drink a Pignoletto standing up at six, like everyone else
Bologna travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Italy
Mid-rangeEuro country, cards everywhere including the market stalls. The osterie in the old centre still prefer cash for small bills.
ATMs & cards
Use Intesa Sanpaolo, UniCredit or BPER machines. Refuse the conversion offer at every Italian machine — "with conversion" costs several per cent. The Euronet machines around Piazza Maggiore are the ones to walk past.
Avoid these
- Euronet
- the machines around Piazza Maggiore
Use these instead
- Intesa Sanpaolo
- UniCredit
- BPER
Refuse the conversion at every Italian machine — accepting it costs several per cent on top of the withdrawal.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Italy
SafeComfortable and student-heavy, busy until late around the university. Petty theft is the only real issue and it concentrates at the station and on the bus to the airport. The Piazza Verdi area gets rowdy on term-time nights rather than threatening.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (6 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- the area immediately around the station — for pickpocketing, and quiet in a way the rest of the centre is not
- Piazza Verdi late on term-time nights — loud and messy rather than threatening
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Italy visa rules
No visa needed
Freedom of movement — no time limit, and no visa. Bring a passport or national ID card.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 90 days
90 days within any 180-day period, counted across the whole Schengen area, not per country. ETIAS, a paid online authorisation, is being introduced for these passports — check the official link for whether it applies to your travel dates.
Visa required in advance€90 (Schengen short-stay visa)
A Schengen short-stay visa is applied for before travel, at the consulate of your main destination.
How to get it: Apply at the consulate or visa centre of the country you will spend most time in, typically 15 working days ahead and no more than six months before travel.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Italy
Excellent and cheapRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Routine vaccinations up to date
Getting treated
EU/EEA and Swiss visitors are treated on the same terms as residents with an EHIC or GHIC card; UK visitors use a GHIC. Everyone else pays, and travel insurance is worth having for the repatriation cover rather than the treatment. Pharmacies handle a lot of minor problems directly and are the fastest route to advice.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
OutstandingThis is where tagliatelle al ragù comes from, and it is never called bolognese here and never served on spaghetti. Tortellini in brodo is the winter dish that matters. Mortadella, not salami. Go to Osteria dell’Orsa or queue at Sfoglia Rina.
Nightlife
A student city of ninety thousand undergraduates, so the evening starts at six with an aperitivo and rarely involves a club.
- Via del Pratello — the street the city drinks on, one bar after another
- Via Zamboni — the university quarter, cheapest and youngest
- Quadrilatero — for aperitivo among the food stalls before they shut
- Via Mascarella — live music, and jazz that has been there for decades
Closing: Bars around 02:00. Aperitivo runs 18:00 to 21:00 and is where the evening actually happens.
A beer in a bar: €4–6
Term time and August are two different cities; the students leave and half the bars close.
Getting around
Easy- UberWorks here
- BoltWorks here
- FREE NOWWorks here
- IT TaxiWorks here
FREE NOW taxis, which is what Italy allows · IT Taxi the national taxi app · Uber Black and Taxi only — no UberX anywhere in Italy · Bolt taxis, in Rome and Milan
- Against a taxi
- The app is the taxi. Uber Black is a different, dearer category.
There is no cheap ride-hailing tier in Italy — the law reserves the work for licensed taxis and NCC hire cars.
Time zone and your working day
Europe/Rome — 6 hours ahead of you
2 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 09:00–11:00 your time, 15:00–17:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 03:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 03:00–11:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Italy
Why these are Italy's numbers and not Bologna's
Home broadband — Good. Comfortable for two people working, streaming in the evening, large downloads. Broadband here runs at 84% of the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Fair. Maps, calls and streaming; tethering a laptop works for an hour, not a day. Mobile runs at 78% of the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Bologna, so these are medians for all of Italy. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Italy, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Italian
- HelloBuongiornobwon-JOR-no
- PleasePer favoreper fa-VO-reh
- Thank youGrazieGRAT-tsyeh
- Yes / NoSì / Nosee / no
4 more phrases
- Excuse meScusiSKOO-zee
- How much is it?Quanto costa?KWAN-to KOS-ta
- The bill, pleaseIl conto, per favoreeel KON-to
- Cheers!Salute! / Cin cin!sa-LOO-teh / chin chin
Ciao is for people you know. With shopkeepers and waiters, buongiorno until evening, then buonasera.
Religion
Catholic
The Vatican is a sovereign state inside Rome. Dress codes are enforced at St Peter’s and most major churches: shoulders and knees covered, and they will turn you away.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Say buongiorno rather than ciao to anyone you do not know
- Drink cappuccino only before about 11:00; after a meal it is an espresso
- Cover shoulders and knees to enter churches, including the major basilicas
- Validate regional train tickets before boarding or risk a fine
Don't
- Do not ask for parmesan on seafood pasta — it is a genuine culinary offence here
- Do not sit on monument steps in Rome or Florence; both cities fine it
- Do not order a coffee "to go" and expect it to be normal
- Do not tip beyond rounding up; coperto already covers the cover charge
Where to stay in Bologna
No Holistay rentals in Bologna yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Bologna on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Guglielmo Marconi BLQ
7 minfrom the airport· 6 km as the crow flies
Marconi Express monorail to the station, 7 min.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
