Day 324: Ferrara

Next up on the day-trip list is Ferrara, to the north-east of Bologna. Up and out at much the same time, on the train by 9:30 and arriving in Ferrara around 10am.

This is one of those frustratingly vague world heritage sites, where it's lauded for "Renaissance town planning", but then many of the landmarks are pre-Renaissance. We had a look at the ruling family's palace, which was actually more of a castle complete with moat and drawbridges (they were justifiably paranoid after a revolt caused several gruesome deaths), then had a look at the central squares, the usual churches and town hall landmarks.

The last part was the Renaissance town planning, which included long wide straight streets, leading to pleasing visual aspects. Not the most exciting subject for a video! But we did our best. Had lunch at a nice little cafe, where I had a couple of small focaccias and Shandos had a panini.

Back to Bologna by 2pm where we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and doing a bit of planning for upcoming weeks. Went out for dinner in the evening without Schnitzel, and headed to a semi-fancy place we'd seen the other night. Lashed out on a typical Italian meal of pasta course, meat course, dessert course and a bottle of red wine. Food was fantastic - I had a similar pasta dish to the tagliatelle al ragu, and then beef cheeks in red wine sauce. Delicious!

Leaving Bologna tomorrow!Read more