The Majestic in Bologna: tours “made to measure”

23-07-2021 | Experience

Written by: Digital Gran Tour

Bologna has a vivacious, extrovert, multi-faceted character, and the Grand Hotel Majestic “già Baglioni” is located right at its centre. Like an antenna, it intercepts the cultural stimuli and vitality of the city and helps guests discover its inestimable heritage. This is why the hotel is the ideal base for a visit and a comprehensive immersion in a place known as “the fat, the learned and the red”.

The Enoteca Morandi

The hotel as a base for a host of adventures

Bologna and Emilia Romagna, a city and a region with different souls. Starting with food. A stone’s throw from the Majestic, in the warren of lanes of the “Quadrilateral” and the Mercato di Mezzo (the Middle Market), you can stroll amid the scents and smells of the fruit and vegetable stalls, the homemade pasta shops and the food boutiques. A hundred metres further on, you come to the Mercato delle Erbe, the old Herb Market, where you can discover typical Bolognese recipes in scores of eateries. Also worthy of a visit is FICO Eataly, the agrifood and gastronomy theme park, now about to reopen after recent renovation work. From Food Valley to Motor Valley: it was here and hereabouts that great legends of motoring on two and four wheels like Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati and Ducati were born, all now open for visits and tours. Embraced on one side by the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines and by the Po Valley on the other, Bologna is surrounded by magical old villages, such as Dozza, a veritable open-air gallery with art works on display in its streets. A whole world waiting to be discovered.

Experiences in the city and its surrounds

The Majestic is situated in an area, between Emilia and Romagna, that has a lot to offer by way of experiences, tours and things to do, of emotions made to measure for the needs and desires of its guests. One interesting package – a comprehensive sensory experience in the company of Executive Chef Guglielmo Araldi, the “director” of the Ristorante I Carracci – takes in all five senses. The first part is dedicated to sight and smell with a visit to food shops and markets in search of local produce. Here guests choose their ingredients and return to the hotel for a cooking lesson, during which they “get their hands dirty” and follow the chef’s advice in the preparation local recipes – the moment of touch and hearing. Then comes taste, with participants sitting down at the table to savour the resulting menu. Dishes are paired with local wines specially selected by the maître sommelier.

As an alternative, it’s possible to book a private tasting in the historic Enoteca Morandi, designed by the hotel manager and inaugurated a year ago, now the perfect setting for gourmet meals. It was in this special place, in the hotel basement, that in 1914 Tommaso Filippo Marinetti organised a special event: a 24-hour blitz of an exhibition, the first major showcase for Bolognese Futurism.

Staying in the city, you can treat yourself to a shopping spree: one of the most elegant places in the heart of the city, the Galleria Cavour houses boutiques and shops inside historical palazzi. Here, with a personal shopper at your side, you can choose clothes and accessories to set off and enhance your own personal taste.

And if you’re a luxury car lover, you can step into an exclusive private for a tour of Motor Valley. The Bologna area, in fact, is home to some of the top historic car brands such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati and Pagani, not to mention Ducati and its outstanding motorcycles. Here it’s possible to visit museums, showrooms and production plants, and round off the experience with a delicious meal in a typical local osteria locale. On request, you can also make your dreams come true and arrange a test drive in a real Ferrari, the most iconic of all Italian cars.