*POST UPDATED OCTOBER 2026
Hello lovely people! Happy weekend! How are you? I hope you have something nice & cozy planned for yourself! I am literally about to step out the door for coffee with a friend, but I needed to share this with you first! It gives me great pleasure to introduce: Three Days in Bologna | Our Mini-Moon in Italy. As the title 100% mansplains – this is the first post covering all things mini-moon related! There will be two more posts in this mini-moon series; the first of which will cover all things Ravenna, while the second will cover the foodie haven of Modena! We actually had our mini-moon back in November, but between Christmas and everything else – yanno, LIFE – , there was just no time for me to sit down and write about it. Thankfully, the time has finally come! I’m so excited to share these posts with you!
And yes, before you come at me: there are a handful of Bologna travel guides already on the blog. My first one, Italian Adventures Part II: Bologna, is a wonderful base guide to the city, covering most of the tourist attractions. My second one, Bologna, A Love Letter, is exactly what it says on the tin, plus some foodie spots & bars thrown in. Our Engagement in Bologna, Italy, my third guide, is less of a guide and more of a diary entry documenting one of the best nights of my life. For my last guide, 72 Hours in Bologna, the Emilia-Romagna Capital, we sought out new-to-us tourist attractions and restaurants. THIS guide, our mini-moon recap, essentially covers all of our absolute very favourite spots in the city; a pilgrimage of sorts, around all of the spots where our love grew and strengthened over the years.
Shall we get down to it?
getting there
Bologna is so blissfully easy to get to. Here’s how we made it into town from Dublin, Ireland:
we flew direct from Dublin with Ryanair. Our flight time was approximately 2.5-hours.
from Bologna airport – Guglielmo Marconi – we opted to take a taxi into the city. The taxi rank is outside the main doors of the airport on the right hand side and is well sign-posted. Our taxi-ride into the city lasted about 15-minutes, and cost us €19.60 in total.
if you’d rather get public transport into the city centre, there’s a new monorail that takes you into Bologna Centrale station in just 7-minutes! We haven’t had the pleasure of taking the monorail yet, so I can’t give you my opinion – although it sure does look cute! For more information about the monorail, click here. The walk from Bologna Centrale into the centre of the city takes about 15-20 minutes along Via Indipendenza, the main shopping street. We usually make this pilgrimage into the city when we’re in Bologna, but we decided we deserved a little luxury on our mini-moon!
where we stayed
The way the flights for our trip worked out meant that we actually got to stay in two different accommodations over the course of our mini-moon. We spent two nights in the first upon our arrival in Bologna, and just one sweet night in the second on the last night of our trip. I’d truly have no problems recommending either! Details below.