Bologna, Ravenna and San Marino, Italy. Arriving on a Friday night the first stop was the airport hotel to get a good night sleep before what turned out to be an excellent weekend road trip. First stop was Ravenna, full of history and famous for it’s beautiful mosaics it sits just about halfway between Bologna and San Marino making it the perfect place to spend the late morning/afternoon. Oh and there’s an old church where the crypt flooded so they filled it with goldfish.. Awesome!

After feeling like we’d got around the majority of what Ravenna had to offer, including a delicious lunch of fresh tagliatelle in a pork ragu, we set off for San Marino. It’s perched high on top of Mount Titano and although completely surrounded by Italy, it’s actually its own microstate. After finding a lucky parking spot we got the next cable car up the mountain. We enjoyed a pizza with a view, walking along the fortress walls and around the narrow city streets topped off with watching the sun set behind the hills. Bliss!

Our evening drive back to Bologna was not as relaxing as it should have been after such a lovely day but when entering the motorway I drove through the ‘Telepass only’ toll lane…. meaning a 65 euro fine in the post. After a lot of failed attempts to retrieve a ticket from the barrier by foot and some grumpy non-English speaking staff we had to just carry on but my ordeal thankfully had a happy ending when the very kind lady at the exit toll decided to take pity on me and only charge the 8 euro toll fee. Phew! Spending our second and final day in Bologna was slightly delayed due to rain but it did eventually clear up and we had a good walk around the city and a drive up to the Sanctuary of San Luca to finish things off before we headed back to the airport to catch our flight home.

See all my photos from our trip below.