I can’t count how many times we passed by Bologna traveling by car, by motorcycle, by train, by bus and of course with our camper van. But rethinking about it, I’d say that all these times we merely avoided the big city of Emilia Romagna, with the excuse that we have to go elsewhere. We were simply convinced that it wasn’t worth a visit … What a big mistake!
This time the timing was almost perfect. We had to accompany our son to the airport of Bologna to catch his early morning flight. We had the whole day ahead of us so we decided to visit Bologna, for-just-a-walk, we said. We stayed for the entire week and yet we didn’t want to leave!
According to our plan we had to arrive close Bologna the evening before the flight; we decided to spent the night at the camper area of Calderara di Reno [44.55943,11.26951], a village just a few kilometers away from the airport. The camper area is very quiet although it may seem to someone a bit remote and isolated. The discharge of the toilet and of the waste water is for free, but for the water supply there is a fee (10cent / 10 liters). Unfortunately the column with the electrical hookups was out of order.
After we spotted the rv area, we moved to the central square of the village, the piazza della Pace [44.56267,11.27205] where we bought a couple of tasteful, take away (da asporto) pizzas. There is ample space for parking; if you don’t care much about noise, it could be a nice and definitely more central spot for sleeping .
Next morning we arrived at the airport G. Marconi of Bologna just in time for the departure. What a hell of a place! It is literally impossible to park a camper for a short time. The only option that you have is to enter the long-term parking and to pay the disproportionate amount of 10 €, even if you want to stop just for a few minutes. What did we do? The same thing many others did. We stopped at the side of the rotunda and we say our goodbyes.
