When I was last time in Italy, I found a new love – Ferrara.

Italy is Italy and every town, every village, every city is fantastic there, but I have to say that Ferrara is even better.

Ferrara

First of all, Ferrara is very cosy, compact, charming, with a large old town, and better organised than many other towns in Italy. It is old, but with all those bicycles around it feels fresh and very active.

Ferrara is just an hour away from Bologna, very well connected by train. The closest international airports would be in Bologna, Rimini or Venice. While Ferrara is probably not so very well known among foreigners, in Italy I have heard quite a few people mentioning it as an exceptionally beautiful city in North Italy. One thing which I liked a lot, and I am sure my friends would love it too – it is touristic, but not so very overcrowded, simple to move around. The majority of tourists were Italians from other regions.

Many people are moving around the centre on bikes. There are places where you can rent one. And if you prefer to feel your feet on the ground, in one or two days, you can simply walk through the whole old town. Ferrara has a charming old town with a cosy network of narrow streets, an ancient castle, lots of family-owned restaurants and cafes, plenty of local shopping areas for something local (mainly Italian brands, not the global ones that you find everywhere).

It feels good in Ferrara. There is a special aura around it. It is not too big to become stressful, not too small to be boring. It is an excellent destination for weekend visitors, but I would even like to stay there longer. Without betraying my eternal love Rome, I would be pleased to live in a smaller city like Ferrara.

From all my experience in Italy, I think it is also the best or one of the best-organised cities in Italy. You can even buy a bus ticket directly from bus drivers! You might say ‘who cares!’, and though it is, indeed, a tiny detail, this is not possible in any other Italian city I have visited (and there are a lot of them…). It makes a big difference when you have to take public transport on Sunday, and all the ticket offices are closed. In the end, it was just one example of many. Many little details completely change the total experience, and in Ferrara people do a great job to make their city convenient.

Ravenna

Other cities nearby Ferrara, easy to see during one long weekend, are Ravenna and Rimini. And of course, Bologna, but Bologna is big and worth another weekend trip.

Ravenna was recommended to me by my husband. I had not heard about it before, but it has very famous unique mosaics from the Bizantine Empire, apparently all Italians study them in school and visit Ravenna at least once. I was a bit unlucky that the one day I have stayed there, it was surprisingly cold and rainy, so not much more I can tell but just to share some pictures of the famous mosaics. By the way, it is effortless to find where to go – every hotel has a tourist map, and at the first spot tourists buy a ticket which is valid for five main churches/museums where you can see the mosaics. All can be easily seen in one day.

Interesting fact: Ravenna hosts also the grave of Dante Alighieri, the greatest Italian poet, who died here in exile – nearly every Italian knows he is buried in Ravenna, but probably this is not so renowned among foreigners.

Rimini

Rimini – the city of Federico Fellini, the famous Italian film director of La Dolce Vita. It was founded 268 BC and made an important link between south and north in Roman times. However, Rimini is best known for the widest and longest sandy beaches in Italy, the never-ending parties, with discos, night clubs and all-inclusive family hotels. By the way, in Italy, “night club” means “striptease bar”, while places for cocktails & dancing are actually called discos, so, beware of misunderstandings ;-). It is, probably, the most popular vacation destination in Italy. You would hardly find an Italian who has never been on vacation with family or friends hanging out in Rimini.

I am weird or just too old, but very busy resorts, thousands of people on the beach and loud nightlife were of my last interest. I went to Rimini for two reasons – first, I found a very cheap direct flight from London to Rimini, and, second, I wanted to see the old town of Rimini, plus Ferrara and Ravenna. I cannot explain why, but nobody talks about Rimini’s old town. It is one of the oldest cities in Europe, but the only thing you hear about are cocktails on the beach.

Adriano (my Italian second half), after hearing of my solo-visiting-Rimini plans, said, “Inga, if you go all alone in Rimini, you’ll represent precisely the reason why we were going there as younger boys – to look for blond single girls from the North. Back in our times, Rimini was especially renowned for German girls (P.S. I am Lithuanian, but I can be easily mistaken for a German)”. Joke or not joke.. that is a part of growing up in Italy. Today I am not sure if Germans make the majority of foreign tourists, judging based on restaurants menus – translations were available first of all in Russian, then in English and in German.

Adriano’s grandfather had his own peculiar tradition. When he partied in Rimini with his friends, he used to eat spaghetti at midnight – just to have enough energy to dance till the morning.

Getting back to the lovely old town, it surprised me a lot, that many visitors in Rimini stay for days at the beach and never get to the centre because look at the pictures – it is fantastic! I loved the street art, lovely colourful houses and authentic, movie-like Grand Hotel, where nobody will tell you a word even if you don’t stay there and just came to read a book and take a cup of coffee in their lobby. 

By the way, in Rimini, I had an outstanding B&B experience. It was a weekend, I was alone, and a couple managing the B&B voluntarily offered to have a walk together to show me the best parts of their beloved city. It was not only the apartment itself was very nice (here is a link), but very unexpectedly I felt like visiting my old friends. Not to mention, that thanks to them, in a few hours I have seen much more than I would have managed even during the whole weekend. 

Visited in May, 2019