On the A1 or Route 64, 90 km north of Florence. Founded in 189 BC, it boasts two leaning towers, square and bricked like factory chimneys. The taller, the Asinelli, has the city at its feet and from its top (498 steps) you can imagine the sort of place Bologna once was, a forest of towers, all inhabited by warring families. Away from Piazza Maggiore the wynds and alcoves seem expressly designed for ambush and furtive plot. You feel like buying a black cloak to fling over your shoulder in the medieval manner.

A major sight is the university, the oldest in Europe (founded AD 1088). Law and medicine are the senior faculties but there is scientific emphasis too. Here Galvani pioneered electricity with experiments on frogs’ legs.

Visit Piazza Nettuno to see Giambologna’s fountain and statue of Neptune (1566); admire the Gothic and Renaissance palaces close by, most of them now serving administrative purposes for the city. Piazza Mercanzia has small old shops with their original signs. Of the churches, San Domenico has important frescos and bas-reliefs, a statue of the saint and three statuettes by Michelangelo. Along Via Maggiore, south-east of centre, you find the Santo Stefano group of antique churches and Santa Maria dei Servi which houses a Cimabue Madonna.

Bologna is a compact city inside its ring road and there are gastronomic restaurants (mortadella and salami the specialities) along its big, rectilinear, arcaded streets. Feasts of music, often avant-garde, are guaranteed at the Opera theatre.