This is not a place to be on a diet. Just when you think you can take in no more, Bologna presents you with one last tempting bite. And then another. Here, nothing is ever enough. Excess is expected. Take the simple red brick buildings. Add a portico or two, some window carvings, a few columns. Arcades? Let's put up twenty-five miles of them. Or take a simple piece of beef, wrap it in prosciutto, fry it for a while. Drizzle it with more olive oil, throw in some cream, a few herbs, sprinkle it with cheese. This town isn't called La Grassa - the fat - for nothing.
Dressed up in extravagant Renaissance detail and rich, deep-red luxury, Bologna is comfortable, lived-in and opulent.
Windows are arranged as artwork and theatre, bursting with pasta, with ham, sausage, chopped chicken, pork and veal, eggs, nutmeg and parmesan. And of course ragú, the original Bolognese sauce.
After dark, below the lamps of the Piazze Maggiore, you enjoy a stroll and a glass of sparkling red Lambrusco. Everywhere there are faded walls encrusted with announcements - theatre, music, festivals - sprayed with the red of local political preference. Clusters of scooters wait impatiently for their owners.
Hungry again, you enter a trattoria. You feel quietly privileged to be shown to an empty table by the window. Then you hear the noise and laughter downstairs. That's where you want to be... Now, among the chequered tablecloths and unsteady chairs, plates of lasagne magically appear. Next to you, fifteen shiny faces are shouting what sound like staccato insults - but delivered with smiles. Someone's birthday? No, just a family celebrating a Tuesday.
When you finally manage to drag yourself outside it starts all over again. The delicious onslaughts:
This is not the kind of food - or city - you can say 'no' to.
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