Almarossa
Bologna
Taste of a Tuscan town and local life
Almarossa is an apartment hotel located near the University of Bologna in the old town, about 15 minutes walk from Bologna railway station and less than 10 minutes from the old town centre with its two towers and Piazza Maggiore. If you have a rental car, you will be directed to a nearby public car park. (cannot park inside the building)
Bologna is located between Florence and Venice, and it takes about 40 minutes to get to Florence by train and about an hour and a half to get to Venice. Instead of going to a tourist city, which is complicated and expensive, you can use Bologna as a base camp and take a leisurely train ride.
Bologna is where the first university in Europe was founded, and even today it is more of a free university town than a tourist destination. It is also a city of gastronomy, so famous in Tuscany that it is nicknamed the 'city of fat people'.
Every corner of the city's red-bricked, colonnaded, corridor-style streets is filled with local restaurants armed with surprisingly rich ragù sauces. In the evening, the shop windows display freshly made yellow homemade tagliatelle and tortellini. It is a place where the relaxed lifestyle and lively rhythm of a traditional small town is alive.
Almarosa offers some of the red brick buildings from the 1920s as aparthotels or serviced apartments, including studio-type units with a small kitchen. The interiors have been completely renovated and are modern and clean. The kitchen is equipped with all kinds of pots and pans, even a cheese grinder, and there is a communal laundry room and tumble dryer. However, the only small drawback is that the room is not very soundproof, but not serious.
I rented a studio with a kitchen and stayed there. Rather than just buy it, I wanted to learn how to make tagliatelle al ragù in Bologna. You can buy the ingredients in the famous Eataly store in the city centre or in small shops in the streets. Or you can go to the local supermarket on the first floor of the building next to Almarosa and get a wide range of fresh ingredients without having to go far. Although I don't speak much Italian, with just a few words and body language, I received a friendly recommendation from the staff and had no problem shopping for fresh and delicious cheeses and prosciutto.
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Tagliatelle & Tortellini
Talgliatelle al ragu is the real name of the pasta with tomato and meat sauce that is wrongly called 'Bolognese pasta'. Talliatelle is the name of the pasta.
The pasta that looks like a dumpling called 'tortellini' is actually the more famous pasta in Bologna. It is a fresh pasta made by putting ingredients such as cheese or ham between two layers of dough. Some of them are served in a clear soup such as dumpling soup.
