Before departing Florence for Bologna it was a brief visit to the city’s famous Duomo to try our luck at getting in (without waiting the entire day!). Unfortunately the line was, as suspected, around the block so instead we climbed the clock tower and saved a few hours.
It was a short drive to Italy’s culinary and university capital, Bologna, which was a great one-night stop. Unfortunately the city was quite empty as most of its residents (one fifth of which are students attending the world’s oldest university) were on holidays for summer - however it was plain to see that Bologna would be quite the buzzing hot-spot of nightlife, music and shopping when in full throttle - definitely hope to return here!
After a dinner at Osteria Dell’orsa - where we of course had the famed Tagliatelle al Ragù (Spaghetti is actually from Napoli, and they don’t call the sauce bolognese!) - we spent the evening drinking at Cassero where we made friends with the barman who had lived in Australia for a couple of years, and who was also studying architecture at uni! Small world :)