What to See in Bologna, from Piazza Maggiore to San Luca

Visiting Bologna is always a surprising experience for everyone seeing it for the first time, thanks to the many monuments and places of interest concentrated in this city. This guide will help you organize your visit, to decide what to see in Bologna and what to do.

What to do in Bologna: itineraries and things to see

There are many places of interest in Bologna that we recommend you visit. It doesn’t matter if you have little time available, this guide will help you understand what to see in Bologna in one day without missing the most important things.

What to see in Bologna: places to visit

1 Piazza Maggiore

Piazza Maggiore is the splendid living room of Bologna. Lively, full of people at any time of day, it showcases architectural jewels such as the Basilica of San Petronio with its characteristic rough and unfinished façade, the Sala Borsa shaped in Liberty style, inside which a futuristic multimedia library has been created. Medieval and Renaissance palaces, including the Palazzo Re Enzo. The square is the preferred meeting place for tourists and citizens; in the past, it was the center of the city’s politics. Here you will also find the Town Hall, recognizable by the statue of Pope Gregory VIII placed on the central portal. Inside, be sure to visit the Sala Farnese, truly very suggestive.

2 The Two Towers, Garisenda and Asinelli

Symbols of Bologna known worldwide. These three monuments are located at the city entrance, on Via Emilia. Definitely include them in the list “Bologna: things to see”.

3 The Fountain of Neptune

The Fountain of Neptune, a work by Giambologna. Located in Piazza del Nettuno, between the Town Hall and the Palazzo del Podestà. It is one of the most beautiful fountains of the sixteenth century.

4 The Porticoes of Bologna

One of the features of Bologna is its porticoes, whose total length reaches up to 40 km: a unique feature in Italy, and perhaps in the world, dating back to the Middle Ages and the founding of the university. Under the sumptuous Pavaglione portico, just steps from Piazza Maggiore, the trade of precious silks took place; the portico of the Church of Santa Maria dei Servi shines after restorations, and the long porticoed walkway that climbs the San Luca hill largely repays the effort of the hike.

Churches of Bologna, basilicas and monasteries not to be missed

5 Basilica of San Petronio

The Basilica of San Petronio remained unfinished; according to the original project, it should have been the size of St. Peter’s Basilica. It remains the sixth largest church in Europe, one of the most important in the Christian community.

6 Basilica of San Domenico

The Basilica of San Domenico dates back to the 1200s and inside it contains several important works by Michelangelo.

7 Shrine of San Luca

The Shrine of San Luca, also known as the Shrine of the Madonna of San Luca, stands on the Colle della Guardia and is visible from almost all points in Bologna. This majestic building is one of the most fascinating shrines in Bologna, together with the Church of San Giacomo Maggiore and the Basilica of Santo Stefano. It is also reachable by a very long porticoed walkway that climbs the San Luca hill.

8 Basilica of Santo Stefano

Not far from the Garisenda and Asinelli Towers, also reachable from the beautiful Corte Isolani, is the Basilica of Santo Stefano, called the “seven churches“, although in reality, only four churches remain, nested one inside the other, built between the 4th and the 19th centuries. Do not miss the splendid Romanesque cloister.

9 San Colombano

San Colombano is a church complex made up of a series of buildings added over the centuries, starting from the 7th century. During recent restoration, a 13th-century wall crucifixion attributed to Giunta Pisano, a medieval crypt, and a 13th-century burial were uncovered. Inaugurated on June 21, 2010, the complex houses the collection of ancient musical instruments donated by Maestro Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, consisting of about ninety pieces including harpsichords, spinets, pianos, clavichords, and a collection of wind and folk instruments dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries. It also preserves the specialized library of the Bolognese musicologist Oscar Mischiati.

10 Church of Santa Cristina della Fondazza

The Church of Santa Cristina della Fondazza that we see today was built in 1602 by Giulio della Torre, an architect in the circle of Domenico Tibaldi. The single-nave interior stands out for the narrowing of the presbytery, which becomes a reverberation chamber that transforms Santa Cristina into an architectural musical instrument, where sound spreads with astonishing acoustic clarity. From this characteristic comes the legend of the “singing nuns”: in the room behind the apse area, the nuns sang protected from prying eyes, and their voice, through two grates above the main altar, spread without echo or reverberation to the entrance. Closed and reopened several times, following the Napoleonic expropriations, after the unification of Italy the Church of Santa Cristina became a military warehouse and the convent a barracks. Since 2008, after the restorations were completed, it has been reopened to the public as an auditorium for classical music and Gregorian chant school.

11 Chapel of Santa Maria dei Carcerati in Palazzo Re Enzo

Inside the restored Chapel of Santa Maria dei Carcerati, built in 1371 by the will of the papal vicar Anglico de Grimoard and intended for the spiritual comfort of those imprisoned in the nearby Palazzo del Capitano, the English artist David Tremlett created one of his wall drawings, blending art of the past with current abstraction, perpetuating a sense of continuity and rupture at the same time, which characterizes many interventions in the region.

David Tremlett is a sculptor who prefers to sculpt the wall with colors, massaging them on the walls as a support for his abstract works, born from a deep emotional and projectual relationship with the chosen place and its preexistences; his geometric and essential forms vibrate through color and light, always in harmony with the architecture that hosts them and which is at the root of his artistic conceptions.