Bologna’s food quarter: delicious heart of a delectable city

Bologna’s food is almost as mind-blowing as the fact that its residents live and work and play in and around 1,000-year-old buildings. At 350 acres, Bologna’s historic centre is Europe’s second largest, with row upon row of medieval, renaissance and baroque buildings.

So to the food. In Bologna, there is the Quadrilatero, a mediaeval food market with streets named for the produce. Like London’s “Poultry” and Kabul’s “Chicken Street”, Bologna has Via Pescherie (Fish Street).

And colour.

Plates and plates of mortadella, parma ham, coppa and speck with pickles, cheese and bread.

There’s fresh pasta in unimaginable quantities. Remember Federico Fellini’s words: “Life is a combination of two things: magic and pasta. If there is magic but there is no pasta, there is no life.”Here in Bologna, there is both magic and pasta.

The Quadrilatero has now become the historical centre bounded by Piazza Maggiore, Via Rizzoli, Piazza della Mercanzia, Via Castiglione, Via Farini, Piazza Galvani and Via dell’Archiginnasio.

It is also the delicious heart of a delectable city.