Italy · Self-guided walk
Bologna in one walk 8 sights, 70 minutes
A self-guided walking tour of the Bologna Old Town: 8 sights on one 4.7 km loop, about 70 minutes on foot, back where you started.
No two days to spare? Here is the short version: the big sights in one loop. I would take longer. I always take longer.
At a glance
The walk in numbers.
- Distance
- 4.7 km, a loop
- Time
- about 70 minutes of walking at 4 km/h, plus however long you stop
- Sights
- 8
- Start and finish
- Asinelli
- Steps
- no streets with steps on the route
- Cost
- free: no guide, no booking, no tip
The route
Map of the Bologna walk: 8 stops, one loop.
The gold line is the walk. The numbers are the stops, in the order you reach them. The pale lines are every other street in the Old Town.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
The stops
8 sights in Bologna, in walking order.
Each stop says how far the next one is and which streets take you there.
1. Asinelli
the start
This is how you work out where you are. From half the lanes on this level you can see it over the roofs, and every road east of the centre aims at its foot. Get to the bottom of it and look at the shorter one beside it. Then decide how long you want to stand just there.
Next: Santa Maria dei Servi, 570 m, about 8 min, along Strada Maggiore.
2. Santa Maria dei Servi
about 8 minutes of walking from the start
The eastern rim of the level, and the reason it reaches out that far at all. In front of the doors sits a court of arches closed on all four sides, wide enough to count as a room of its own, and it is the widest one in a town that is mostly arches. Walk the four sides before you go in.
Next: Biblioteca Universitaria, 850 m, about 13 min, along Strada Maggiore, Piazza Aldrovandi, Via Giuseppe Petroni, Via Zamboni.
3. Biblioteca Universitaria
about 21 minutes of walking from the start · inside open Mon–Fri 09:00–18:45, Sat 09:00–13:30, Sun closed
From the lane it is one more door in a row of them, and that is the whole point. Everything worth looking at is on the far side, and the loudest stretch of the whole walk runs past outside. Go in if they let you. Then put your head back.
Next: Teatro Arena del Sole, 1,030 m, about 16 min, along Via Zamboni, Via 20 ottobre 1944, Via delle Belle Arti, Via delle Moline, Via dell'Indipendenza.
4. Teatro Arena del Sole
about 37 minutes of walking from the start
You will pass it twice on the long dead straight street north and think about something else both times. Do not. Stop under the three big arches and read the line carved above them. Five Italian words, and they say what this building is for. I am not translating them.
Next: Mercato delle Erbe, 930 m, about 14 min, along Via Ugo Bassi.
5. Mercato delle Erbe
about 51 minutes of walking from the start
The one building here where I am comprehensively outclassed. Come in the morning, before the counters thin out, and take the outer aisle rather than the one straight up the middle. Nobody in here is in a rush, which I respect.
Next: Torresotto di Porta Nuova, 260 m, about 4 min.
6. Torresotto di Porta Nuova
about 55 minutes of walking from the start
Low, plain and very easy to miss, which is exactly why I am pointing at it. Slow down when the buildings pinch in over the road, look at the arch above your head, and then turn and look back the way you arrived. That is the shape of a boundary nobody has needed for six hundred years.
Next: Piazza Maggiore, 490 m, about 7 min, along Via Porta Nova, Via Quattro Novembre.
7. Piazza Maggiore
about 62 minutes of walking from the start
The whole level leans towards this one. When you are done with it, walk into the vaulted crossing under the Palazzo del Podestà on the north side, put your face into one of the four corners and speak quietly. Whoever is standing in the corner diagonally opposite will hear every word. Six hundred years on and that trick still works.
Next: Torre degli Azzoguidi, 290 m, about 4 min, along Piazza Maggiore, Piazza Re Enzo, Via Caduti di Cefalonia.
8. Torre degli Azzoguidi
about 66 minutes of walking from the start
The lane took its name from it, not the other way round, which is the correct order of things. Altabella, which means tall and beautiful, and nobody was exaggerating. It is private, so you stay outside. Get far enough back that you can see the whole of it against the sky.
Back to the start: Asinelli, 280 m, about 4 min, along Via Caduti di Cefalonia.
Every stop counts from the street; the hours are for going inside. Opening hours from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors. Check before you go.
After the walk
The rest of Bologna.
This loop is 8 sights. The Old Town is 167 streets, and I have opinions about all of them. Every street of the Bologna Old Town, with what to eat and where.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone: every street is a line of dots you collect by walking it, and the phone stays in your pocket. Your first city is free.