THIS ITALIAN CITY IS INCREDIBLE! (Bologna First Impressions) 🇮🇹

We're heading towards Bologna today, but before that we're still in Florence and we're going to get some breakfast in Florence before getting on our way. So we've come to a little place called Shake Cafe. I've got myself an orange juice, which is a straight out of the oranges. I've got a large latte, apple croissant, and I must say it's probably the first time I've had an apple croissant. I've never had an apple croissant before. There we are, we have arrived in Bologna. Turns out it is correct that it is the origin of spaghetti bolognese as that's the first seven letters of the word. Anyway, we're going to be spending the whole day here and showing you around. We've never been here before. Along our road trip so far, we have visited Rome, followed by Siena, and then over to Florence and now Bologna. And so far, where's been your favourite place? It's a toss up between Rome and Siena. For a big city, Rome was great. For the little cities, towns, whatever you want to call them, Siena was just awesome. Lovely little, you know, authentic streets. The food was amazing and it's just full of like little, nice little delis and restaurants with really good quality food. However, we were both not so fond of Florence. Although it was a nice place, it just didn't quite live up to the hype and compared to Siena and Rome, it didn't quite have that wow factor, that spark for us. So we're hoping that Bologna brings that back. So let's see. It's already giving me a better vibe than Florence. I don't know why. Maybe Florence was just a bit too big. It's a similar size to Florence. Is it? Yeah. Okay. I'm just feeling that nicer vibe here, to be honest. Once again, it's been far too long before we've had our little dose of caffeine. It must have been about two hours. So it's time to head to a place that can dose us back up. I know we're kind of bringing you a hell of a lot of food in these videos, but it's pretty hard not to when you're in Italy. That's really nice. Oh my word, check this out. It's never a struggle when you're in Italy to find ham. Never a struggle. Ham, salami and cheese, you sort it out here. I myself am a pasta kind of guy. And if I was here in Italy, living here, you could literally eat a different type of pasta every other day, couldn't you? Look at this ricotta and mortadella. I don't even know what that is. Probably some kind of cheese. Tortelloni, burrata, tortelloni asparagus and prebola. Bloody Nora. It's absolutely gorgeous stuff. It's fantastic, isn't it? Big Arnie sandwich. Prosciutto ham, a bit of lettuce inside. Really nice mozzarella focaccia bread. This is lovely. And I'm on to dessert. So I've got a tiramisu and I've got a fruit tart. On this trip to Italy, I'm just in my element with some of these desserts. Creamy, sweet, absolutely delicious. I've eaten some of the best tiramisu I've ever eaten in my life. They've obviously got it going on with tiramisu here. One of the reasons Bologna is a famous city is for its architecture and its 40 kilometers of porticos, which are essentially these corridors that connect the entire city with unique arches and creates quite a good spot for a photo. And it's also a city with the oldest known university in the world. So the very first university in the world was here in Bologna, which was founded in 1088 AD, putting that almost a thousand years old. That's quite a long time. It's just another one of those Italian cities where you go in the city centre and it's just full of little bars and restaurants and cafes and that, all serving great fresh Italian food. And it seems to be the vibe, you know, lots of people will be sitting out in the middle of the day having a glass of wine, a platter of ham and cheese, a glass of Prosecco or a beer, you know, it's just, it's just great atmosphere, man. Ladies and gents, we're about to be doing something rather special. We're going to be heading up the tallest tower in Bologna. It's called the Assinelli and it's going to give you the best view of the city that there is in Bologna. And we're paying 10 euro to do it and you're getting it for free. How about that? I think that deserves a like on the video. How about you? The one we're headed up right now is 97 metres tall, putting it by far the tallest structure in Bologna. So we're going to get a pretty good view over all of the red roofed buildings. But when it was originally built, it was only originally built to 70 metres. It was then extended to its current 97 metres. That's just silly, isn't it? Whoa. So the kind of thing about this tower is that there are just under 500 steps to get to the top. So that's kind of a lot. Built in the 11th century, but this tower then got used in World War II as a watchtower. And now we're climbing the stairs. I can definitely see why. It looks like we have arrived. Oh, that breeze is nice. And there's little viewing windows. Let's have a look. Wow. Here we go. That's what Bologna is famous for, the red tile roofs. Terracotta, mate. Terracotta. So over the years from its construction, the tower suffered a lot of damage and fire as it often got struck by lightning. But this was sorted out in 1824 when they fitted a lightning conductor to it, which stopped that happening. Yeah. And during the wars as well, it avoided bombs. It avoided, you know, just natural disasters sort of taking it down. It's literally been standing here since the 11th century, which is a long time. So it must have been built with some decent structural integrity, I imagine, by the Italians, who are very good at architecture. They've got these sort of iron or steel frames over the windows, which I imagine were not there in the beginning. But as this ledge is quite low, they've obviously had to put that in because of all the tourists pouring up here. Because if you over the edge, definitely could have been some casualties, I imagine. All right. So it's time for the descent down the Asseneli tower. I just realised I'm a complete silhouette, but nevertheless, that was great. Sorry. Thank you. I'll swap with you here. Thank you very much. Asseneli, Bologna, done. I've got myself an Aperol spritz. I've never actually had one before. I don't really like it. I'm not going to lie. I didn't think it tastes like that. Oh no. And once again, we've gone for our favourites of the starters. We've got lovely mozzarella in the middle. I believe it's not. It's actually burrata mozzarella we've got today. I'm not sure what the difference is, but that's what we've got. We've got some sliced tomatoes and basil and some prosciutto ham. And you've gone for the same, haven't you? And in the next video, we're going to be taking you right to the region where this ham originates from. Oh my God. Mozzarella is just the best. It's just so delicate and light and fluffy in your mouth. World class. I've got a bit of an issue going on here. I seem not to be learning from my mistakes here in Italy because it's two or three times you've had that buffalo mozzarella and ham starter. And every single time after we've eaten it, we've said, oh, that was massive. There's no way I can eat and eat a main course now. That was a big meal. I'm absolutely stuffed. And now I've got a pasta dish on the way. This pasta dish, I had to get it. It's Bolognese. Here's where Bolognese originated. I've probably eaten Bolognese over a hundred times in my life. And I'm now in the city where it came from. So it just had to be done. Tagliatelle Bolognese. That's my favourite type of pasta tagliatelle and Bolognese. Come on. It's just this staple. Let's have it. Is someone going to tell him or do I have to? They simply cannot do that. Lock them up. Throw away the kiosk. That's good. Tomato with Bolognese. Slightly chewy pasta. Packed full of beefy flavours. Nice and generous with the meat portion as well. That is just world class. Ladies and gents, as you can see, that is a clean plate and I cannot eat one more bite. I hope you have enjoyed this video around Bologna. Showed you around as best as we can. We told that we climbed that Acinelli tower. We did a lot of things. That deserves a like if you did enjoy. Are you going to sign out for us, are you? Yeah, well, I've really enjoyed Bologna. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have. But as always, for now, take care.