Hotel Novecento * * * *

Walk in Piazza Galileo
Guided Tours
Visit the Town Hall (walking distance)
Bicycle Rentals for tours
Arrangements for spectacles in Bologna
Visit the Morandi Museum
Visit the National Pinacoteca
Visit the Giardini Margarita

*** BOLOGNA ART HOTELS NEWSLETTER ***

Art Exhibition at the Otto Gallery: Marco Gastini:

From October 7th To November 28th, 2006

ABOUT BOLOGNA

Bologna, a warm, friendly city,a well-preserved old town surrounded by green hills, an old tradition in art and culture, the world oldest university, world famous cooking, an international communication crossroads. Sometimes called "Bologna the fat", this city is a great place to indulge yourself: Many consider it to be the gastronomic capital of Italy.

Local specialties include tagliatelle, the Bolognese meat sauce called ragu and handmade tortellini. And, yes, the bologna in the sandwiches of your youth was a descendant of a local delicacy, mortadella. In between meals, tour the city.

Visit the Basilica of San Petronio, while its unfinished facade may not thrill, the enormous interior is worth exploring (don't leave without getting an explanation of the brass meridian line in the floor).

Also on Piazza Maggiore are the 16th-century Neptune Fountain and the Museo Morandi (in the Palazzo Comunale), which houses more than 200 works by 20th-century painter Giorgio Morandi. To experience the well-preserved medieval town center, walk in the small streets east of the piazza and along Strada Maggiore.

Bologna is also home to Europe's oldest university, where Dante and Petrarch, amongst other notables, studied. Our favorite thing to see there is the old, wooden Anatomical Theater, where medical students observed dissections. While in the area, visit the Pinacoteca Nazionale, which has an excellent collection of Italian Renaissance art.

For a little bit of nature, head to the Giardini Margarita, the city's much-used public park. Porticoes line just about every street in the city. If you're feeling adventurous, you can follow the longest arcaded walkway in the world up into the hills outside Bologna to the Shrine of the Madonna di San Luca. If you go both ways on foot, you'll have walked about 6 mi/10 km. Perhaps because of the university, Bologna is a convivial city and has much to offer in the way of nightlife.