The Bon Vivant Blog

This is a food store, not a restaurant – but it’s definitely worth a visit. Luckily, we happened to pass by this deli while strolling along the fish market street. The tiny tortellini with paper thin pasta through which you could see the meaty red filling caught my eye alongside the wheels of cheese in [...]

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A very well-known purveyor of gelato in Bologna which has won awards . It is a different kind of gelato from what we had a Perche No – much richer-tasting with a fuller mouth feel. In fact, as they are scooping it out from the containers, the gelato just looks thick and hangs off the [...]

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In contrast to Sorbetteria Castiglione, this is just an ice cream window with two servers flanked with a row of ice cream mixers/makers. It would be easy to walk past this place if it weren’t for the line of customers. The fact that there is a line-up even at 11pm tells you that this is [...]

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This was probably my favourite store in Italy. It’s inside an old church that has had its inside torn out and about 4 floors of books and restaurants installed. It’s a huge bookstore, with at least 3 restaurants – one for sandwiches, one for pasta, and one that is a wine bar (there may be [...]

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In August, Bologna gets hot. I don’t mean some jerk saying “hot enough for ya?” hot – I mean run from shadow-to-shadow hot. It is one of the hottest places in Italy in the summer, and generally speaking the entire town (mostly) closes down for the month. It is ridiculous by mid-day – 38 degrees [...]

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