Explore the region

Bologna doesn't try to impress you the way Florence does. It doesn't need to. The city has one of the world's oldest universities, forty kilometres of covered porticoes that earned UNESCO status in 2021, and a food culture so deeply rooted that the rest of Italy quietly acknowledges it as the best in the country.

We spent two nights here and barely scratched the surface. The towers — Le Due Torri — are the obvious starting point, but the real Bologna is in the backstreets: the covered alleys leading to hidden courtyards, the market stalls that have been in the same families for generations, the bars where students have been drinking the same wine since the 1500s.

The food deserves a paragraph of its own. Bolognese sauce — ragù alla bolognese — is nothing like what gets served outside Italy. Here, it's made with tagliatelle (never spaghetti), slow-cooked for hours, and rich in a way that makes you want to order it twice. We did. San Luca basilica is worth the climb or the land train, the views across the city are extraordinary, and the descent gives you the best excuse to stop for gelato you'll ever have.

Ferrara is one of those places that doesn't shout. It simply exists, beautifully preserved, going about its business at the pace it has always preferred — which is, largely, the pace of a bicycle. The city has more bikes per capita than almost anywhere in Italy. During the hours when the historic centre restricts cars entirely, the streets fill with cyclists of every age, and the city feels like a different era entirely.

The centrepiece is the Castello Estense — a genuine moated medieval fortress sitting right in the middle of the city, still surrounded by water, still exactly as imposing as it was when the Este family ruled the most cultured court in Renaissance Italy. The Duomo is magnificent, the medieval Jewish quarter is one of the best preserved in Europe, and the wide Renaissance streets — laid out in a grid centuries before city planning was fashionable — are endlessly walkable.

The ramparts are the unexpected highlight. The old city walls have been converted into a 9km cycling and running track that circles the entire historic centre — tree-lined, flat, and completely car-free. We ran it on a warm morning and it was one of the best runs either of us has done anywhere in Europe. Hire a bike at the station and you can do it in under an hour, stopping whenever something catches your eye.

Rimini has a split personality, and both halves are worth your time. The old town — the part most beach visitors never see — contains some genuinely impressive Roman heritage: the Arch of Augustus (27 BC, the oldest surviving Roman arch in Italy), the Tiberius Bridge (14 AD, still carrying traffic today), and a compact historic centre with excellent restaurants and a very different energy to the seafront.

Then there's the other Rimini — the long strip of beach clubs, hotels, and bars that stretches along the Adriatic coast. It's unashamedly commercial, relentlessly lively in summer, and enormous fun if you approach it on its own terms. The beach club culture here is genuinely Italian — not the sanitised resort version you get elsewhere — and the nightlife, centred around venues like Cocoricò and the clubs of Riccione just down the coast, has been drawing serious DJs and serious dancers from across Europe for decades.

Our take: spend the morning in the old town, lunch somewhere proper, then walk to the seafront in the afternoon. You'll understand why Rimini is both things at once — and why neither half makes sense without the other.

We'll be honest — not every day in Emilia-Romagna needs to involve a UNESCO site. Sometimes you just want to scream on a roller coaster. Mirabilandia, Italy's second-largest theme park, sits just south of Ravenna near Savio and delivers exactly that: serious rides, big theming, and the kind of day that leaves you exhausted in the best possible way.

The park is genuinely impressive in scale — multiple themed zones, a huge internal lake with its own shows, and a coaster lineup that will satisfy serious thrill-seekers. iSpeed, the park's flagship, is one of the fastest in Italy. Katun is a suspended inverted coaster with seven inversions. Divertical, the world's tallest drop tower when it opened, is exactly as terrifying as it sounds.

Our take: go mid-week if you can, arrive early, and work the big rides first before the queues build. The park is enormous so wear comfortable shoes. It's a completely different side of the Ravenna region — and one that's especially good if you're travelling with kids, teenagers, or anyone who needs a break from beautiful medieval architecture.