BOLOGNA · ITALY
Where Italy learns to cook.
Hands-on cooking classes, market mornings and food tours in the home of tagliatelle al ragu, tortellini and mortadella. Plus the Food Valley dairies and the Motor Valley supercars, a short drive across the plain.
Only here
Only in the home of Italian food.
Cooking classes and food tours turn up in every city. Hand-rolled sfoglia, a true Bolognese ragu and the Food Valley at the source belong to Emilia-Romagna alone.
The sfoglia tradition
Pasta rolled by hand
Bologna learns its pasta from the sfogline, the women who roll egg dough into a sheet thin enough to read a newspaper through. In a class you take the rolling pin to your own sfoglia, then cut tagliatelle and close tortellini the way it has been done here for centuries.
- 1 Bologna Local Pasta Cooking Class, Ragu, Spritz, Wine & Gelato
- 2 Bologna: Pasta and Tiramisu Cooking Class with Wine
- 3 Bologna: Pasta and Tiramisu Small Group Cooking Class with Wine
La Grassa
The real tagliatelle al ragu
There is no spaghetti bolognese in Bologna. The city eats its slow-cooked ragu with fresh tagliatelle, baked into green lasagne, folded into tortellini in broth. A class here is where you finally learn the dish the rest of the world only thinks it knows.
- 1 Bologna Local Pasta Cooking Class, Ragu, Spritz, Wine & Gelato
- 2 Pastamama, Home Cooking Classes at Grace’s Home
- 3 Bologna: Pasta and Tiramisu Cooking Class with Wine
The Food Valley
Parmigiano, prosciutto, balsamico
The plain around Bologna is the source for three of Italy's greatest foods. Day trips run out to the Parmigiano-Reggiano dairies at dawn, the Modena lofts where traditional balsamic ages for decades, and the Parma cellars hung with prosciutto. You taste each one where it is actually made.
- 1 From Bologna: Parma Cheese & Ham Factory Tours and Tastings
- 2 Cars&Food: Lambo, Ferrari, Parmigiano, Balsamic, PrivateTransport
- 3 Private Tour Parmigiano,Prosciutto,Balsamico with driver-Bologna
Start here
The experience most people book first.
If you only do one thing in Bologna, the list keeps coming back to this one.
The classics
Bologna's Most Popular Experiences
Walking food tours, pasta classes, the two towers and the Quadrilatero market. The days most people come to Bologna for.
Where to begin
The experiences a Bologna trip is built around.
Cooking classes, food and market tours, the Food Valley dairies, the Motor Valley supercars and the porticoed old city. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The big question
Which cooking class?
Bologna is where you learn to make the food, not just eat it. The only real choice is what you want to cook, and how far you want to take it.
The Motor Valley
Ferrari and Lamborghini, born up the road.
The plain north of Bologna builds the fastest cars on earth. Ferrari at Maranello, Lamborghini at Sant’Agata, Ducati and Pagani, all within an hour of the city. Day trips run to the museums, the factory lines and the test tracks, with a passenger lap for the brave.
Read the guide: the best Motor Valley tours →Across the plain
Where the Parmigiano is born.
An hour from the city, three of Italy’s greatest foods are still made the slow way. The Parmigiano-Reggiano dairies turn the morning milk by hand, the Modena lofts age traditional balsamic for decades, and the Parma cellars hang prosciutto in the hill air. Day trips taste each one at the source.
See the Food Valley tours →La Rossa
Forty kilometres of arcades.
Bologna is a city you can cross in the rain without an umbrella. Nearly forty kilometres of porticoes run along its streets, terracotta arches stacked since the Middle Ages, the longest of them climbing the hill to the San Luca sanctuary. UNESCO added them to the World Heritage list in 2021. Walk them with a local and the old city opens up.
Walk the old city →On the plate
The whole city, one tasting at a time.
A food tour is the fastest way into Bologna. A few hours through the Quadrilatero and the Mercato delle Erbe, stopping for mortadella and Parmigiano, a glass of Pignoletto, fresh tortellini and a square of real ragu, with a local to tell you which counter to trust. Most run small, and most fill up days ahead.
See all 42 food tours →Browse it all
Every way to spend a day in Bologna.
Cooking classes and pasta workshops, food and market tours, the Food Valley and the Motor Valley, the towers and the porticoes, by bike or with a private guide.
Plan it
A perfect day in Bologna.
First time in the city? Here is a day that runs market to midnight without a wasted hour.
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