Where to stay in Bologna

The food capital, and it does not have to try. Porticoes for miles, a real university city rather than a museum piece, and Modena and Parma close enough for a day out.

Bologna's centre is the old city inside the viali ring road, and choosing a quarter there is about noise, not distance. Piazza Maggiore and the Quadrilatero lanes are the middle; Santo Stefano is the quiet side; Via Zamboni is the university, loud until late. Centrale sits on the northern edge, one straight portico up Via Indipendenza from the piazza.

It suits people who order the second plate before finishing the first, and anyone tired of cities arranged for visitors: this one goes to work in the morning, and its headline sights are done in a day and a half. A hire car is a liability in a camera-enforced ZTL. Centrale's high-speed platforms are three floors underground, a quarter of an hour from the surface ones.

Two or three nights as a hub. Regionali reach Modena in under half an hour, Parma in about an hour and Ravenna's mosaics a little beyond. Frecciarossa and Italo make Florence a forty-minute hop and Milan about an hour; take Bologna after Florence or Venice rather than before, because it is where a trip relaxes. The Quadrilatero is at its best before eleven.

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