Dining and drinking are particularly important in the city, and its culinary tradition is one of the richest that you will find anywhere. The cheaper dining establishments offer outstanding food, so you won’t be breaking the bank for a good meal. Furthermore, people travel from areas that are miles away from Bologna just to enjoy the storied cuisine of the city.

Whether you venture into one of Bologna’s traditional late-night inns, called “osterie”, or one of the top restaurants in the city, you will never encounter a disappointing meal. In addition to the city’s famous pasta dishes, Bologna is renowned for some of the best culinary innovations in Italy, especially their pates. Even on nights during the week, the crowds are out dining in Bologna, and it is not unusual to find it hard to walk into any of these restaurants without having made a reservation first.

As was mentioned above, Bologna is well recognized for its fantastic cuisine, and food lovers are seldom disappointed, if at all. Bologna cuisine also features a wide array of other cheeses, meats, and pastas so choosing where to eat is often challenging when visiting the city. Here is a list of the more recommended restaurants in Bologna:

1. Drogheria della Rosa

Drogheria della Rosa  – a crowded and small trattoria in a former pharmacy is the setting for this restaurant where the “in-crowd” often dines. The restaurant’s antique decor and fantastic wine cellar are well worth exploring, but the food is excellent and so are the prices.

2. Ex Forno

Located in the Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Ex Forno is a casual establishment that serves a more simpler fare such as salad niçoise and risotto ai funghi.

3. La Sorbetteria Castiglione

La Sorbetteria Castiglione is a classic ice cream shop that always has a long line but never has a long wait. The exotic flavors that they serve include cremino ludovico, dolce contagio, and dolce emma. Chances are if you visit the shop another time, they will have invented and added a few new flavors to the menu.

4. Marco Fadiga Bistrot

Decorated with a discarded champagne crates, framed Tintin pictures, and a graffiti-filled wall, Marco Fadiga Bistrot is a casual restaurant that serves up innovative dishes that feature unusual flavor combinations. Dishes such as bass tartar with ginger, hazelnuts, and mango, or salmon antipasti marinated in coffee, are standard on the menu.

5. Ristorante al Pappagallo

Rated as one of the very best restaurants in Bologna, the Ristorante al Pappagallo lands near the top of everybody’s list. In addition to a fabulous menu, there are low-calorie dishes available as well as a very impressive wine list.

Photo of tortelloni pasta in Bologna, Italy, originally posted by MMChicago

If you’re planning a weekend break in Amsterdam, Netherlands in November,  visit the Rijksmuseum to see Damien Hirst’s latest artwork: a 18th century human skull covered with diamonds.

Bologna Museum of Anatomical Waxes

For those of you curious to see more human skulls,  Boingboing posted a photo from a series of shots taken at the Museo delle Cere Anatomiche in Bologna, Italy.

History Museum in Budapest

If you’re traveling to Budapest, Hungary, read The Herald Tribune to get information on the House of Terror Museum. Housed in a former headquarters of the Hungarian Communist Secret Police, this Budapest museum is dedicated to remembering crimes committed by both the Nazi and Communist regimes.

France Hotels for Foodies

About.com tells you everything about French independent hotel chain Logis de France. Including small hotel-restaurants like the Domaine de Roquerousse in Provence or the Auberge De Launay in the Loire Valley, these 3200 holiday accommodations offer guests a fine dining experience.

Beer Pilgrimage in Belgium

If you are a beer lover planning a trip to Belgium, on cnn.com read an article on Bruges in which the Flemish city is described as a paradise for Belgian beer fans.

Shop at the city market

Early one Saturday morning we took a 2-hour train ride from Florence, our current place of residence, in order to catch the weekly outdoor market that starts from the Parco della Montagnola and continues to spread out beyond it. I love finding well-priced vintage goods ( i.e. used clothing) and just down the hill on the left of the park is a veritable gold-mine for vintage treasures, from hand-made quilts to thirty-year-old Converse high tops, both available in plaid. What makes it so interesting is that this antiques market can serve as a tangible time-line for Italian fashion; it houses some of the best examples in trends from the various decades.

After prying myself away from the vintage treasures (dark brown leather boots with light brown suede patches in the form of lions…grrr…) and finding my friends that had forsaken me for the food. Both of them started their day in Bologna with something that appeared to me to be a hot dog (do people from Seattle eat hot dogs? I thought that was an East-Coast thing?), but that they claimed to be delicious wurst with an unbelievably good bun, and at 3 euros, not a bad way to inaugurate themselves into the eating culture of the city.

Further on, there are well-priced booths set up to sell everything you can imagine, from kitchen ware to socks. They all wind up selling pretty much the same stuff, so after ten minutes we felt comfortable skipping over the rest of it and finding our way to the beautiful and broad main street, via dell’Indipendenza. It is lined with the usual chain stores, like Yamamay or Zara, but also sprinkled with sweet cafés and independent stores. Since shopping is always on the itinerary, a trip to the closest H&M was in store. I want to warn you now, it is massive, four floors full of the latest trends- but only for women. To the disappointment of my great new friend from Seattle there were no good buys for the other half.

Discover splendid churches

Past the stores and the cafès and H&M, we found ourselves in Piazza Maggiore, home of the Fontana di Nettuno, a beautiful bronze sculpture from 1566 by Giambologna (a french-flemmish import of the so-called “Mannerist” era). Past the Fontana is the Basillica di San Petronio, the patron-saint of the city. The entrance is free and is a great oppurtunity to check out gothic architecture and beautiful, large stained-glass windows. Some of the Church is left unfinished, like the facade, but the frescoes and sculptures around the altar are breath-taking.
Another church that we were dying to see was the Basillica di San Domenico, that contains an altar that Michelangelo finished that has three sculptures attributed to Michelangelo, especially the angel with the candle on the right. I was able to get within feet of artistic genius. Go any closer, however, and the gaurds will yell at you- I saw it happen to a couple of other admirers.

Eat a delicious pasta in the university district

After the market and the churches we decided that we needed a break and made our way back to the Piazza Maggiore to sit with the locals. We listened to a busker play John Lennon covers with his flute and watched families take walks together. It was absolutely the perfect day to travel, we could have sat in the piazza for the rest of our time there, but my stomach was starting to growl and we still had not made our way over to the university district. Bologna is a university town with many spots that cater to students, which made finding a great, well-priced place to eat pretty easy. Ragù alla Bolognese is the pasta dish in this town, so we decided “when in Rome…” at a great restaurant and pizzeria in the university district.

At about 8:30, after a full day of shopping, walking, eating and taking in Bologna’s red beauty, we decided to head home to Florence. I remember walking down via dell’Independenza with all of the Italians that were out taking a Saturday night walk down the main drag, and having one of those very Italian moments, a very-alive feeling that is like falling in love again with someone you have loved for a while. Italy, with all of its rich and varied traditions, never fails to keep me on my toes.

Photo of Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, originally posted by B a m s h a d