Bologna & Emilia-Romagna - Italy - page 244

Bologna's Music Festivals
If you're in Bologna April to October, you can spend your evenings at the
classical and jazz concerts and other events that are part of the Bologna
Festival (Via delle Lame, 58; % 051-6493397; www.bolognafestival.it;
tickets start around € 10- € 20). The performances are held in church clois-
ters and other scenic settings throughout the city center. Performances
can range from Mozart to the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, from the
Dee Dee Bridgewater & Trio to the Tokyo Quartet.
A far less tame event is the Made in Bo festival ( % 051-533880;
www.madeinbo.it), a series of late-night outdoor rock concerts held in
summer (June-July or July-Aug) in Parco Nord (bus no. 25 serves the area
from the train station; free buses from Piazza Maggiore are provided for
some events). Get tickets at CD Mania (Piazza Sacrati, 33; % 0532-
210292). Ask the tourist office for details on both of these festivals, as
well as the many concerts, dance and theater performances, and other
events the city stages throughout the year.

pungent mushrooms, tiny susine plums, pointy San Marzano tomatoes, mounds of
grapes, trays of chestnuts, garlands of fiery red pepperoncini, and ropes of garlic.
In a city this devoted to food, there are also two covered markets —though the
Mercato Clavature, in the midst of that street market, has definitely seen better
days (word is that the owners are trying to run out the few remaining traditional
stall owners with high rent and dilapidated conditions in order to turn the place
into a more upscale cafe-and-shops joint).
Far more of a going concern is bustling Mercato delle Erbe

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, with a blink-
and-you'll-miss-it entrance on Via Ugo Bassi, 2 blocks west of its intersection
with Via G. Marconi. This covered market houses 36 specialty food shops and 72
fruit and vegetable stands; make sure you get here before they close up shop for
the lunch break around 1pm.
Exit the market from the back onto Via Belvedere, where you can still see the
market's original 1910 facade in all its orange-and-yellow neoclassical grandeur.
Across the street is Le Sflogline (Via Belvedere 7B), a traditional sfoglini shop run
by a trio of smiling ladies who spend their days making fresh pasta and pastries,
as well as lasagna in tiny takeout foil containers. ( Sfoglini are Bolognese pasta
makers who roll out fresh pasta in great sheets, and then cut it into strips using
rolling pins set with rows of plastic discs.) There's another such shop, La Braseria
Sfoglia, at Via A. Tostoni 9A.
End your gastronomic journey with a pilgrimage to Majani

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(Via Carbonesi,
5; % 051-6562209; www.majani.com), chocolatiers extraordinaire since 1796.
About € 4.50 will buy you a sampler baggie filled with their greatest hits—one
each of the chocolate “tortellini” (in milk, dark, and white, each filled with a
chocolate cream), a selection of the famous cremini Fiat (chocolate napoleons), and
a few scroza (thin sheets of dark chocolate, roughly accordioned up into a bar).
Bologna the Fat, indeed.