IT - Emilia-Romagna

Emilia-Romagna is a region of northeastern Italy.

To know:
The name shows the duality of the region, which is expressed not so much in the orography as in the history and character of its people. The Emilian people in the proper sense are lively, sociable, always ready and sometimes lightning fast, with a well-concealed melancholy vein in the misty areas along the Po, with a little more privacy in the mountains, with a certain dose of snobbery in the cities . The Romagnoli are also endowed with a sagacious spirit, but with a greater focus – Romagna’s blood is proverbial -; people of great passions, for better or for worse; land of brigands (the Passatore), of extreme political passions (of Romagna origin was Mussolini); of great working capacity (family-run tourism in Romagna was born out of nothing and has become a leading sector in the region).

Territories and tourist destinations.

Emilia
      Emilian bank of the Po – The Lower Emilia is an area of ​​fertile land that overlooks the Po and the Po and its tributaries derive the wealth of water that make them fertile. It is a campaign of great and boundless horizons, dotted with hundreds and hundreds of farmhouses, many of which are uninhabited today. Piacenza is the largest city; the other, non-industrialized, smaller centers, however, have a significant artistic importance, the legacy of their past as small capitals. It is above all an area of ​​castles, linked to the memory of the families who made it into refined courts: the Rossi, the Pallavicino, the Torelli, the Meli Lupi, the Sanvitale, who left us their residences and their small towns: Soragna, San According to Parmense, Sissa, Fontanellato, Roccabianca, Polesine Parmense, Busseto, Colorno and, after Piacenza, the other ducal city of Guastalla.
      Emilian Po Valley – This huge flat expanse, which excels for agri-food production – from these campaigns come the Parmigiano Reggiano, cured meats, Lambrusco, Fortana, includes the presence of important cities, for the most part located along the main road axis of the via Emilia: the capitals Parma and Modena, as well as Piacenza on the banks of the Po, the regional capital Bologna but also Fidenza and Reggio Emilia. More isolated, to the north east, the ducal Ferrara which boasts the title of World Heritage Site as an admirable Renaissance city. And then, on the border with the Lombard region of Mantua, still capitals of the Padan Principalities: Carpi, Correggio, Novellara, Reggiolo, Rolo, Mirandola.
      Emilian Apennines – Zone of summer climatic stays, winter sports, mushroom picking, hunting, it also includes places and cities of good landscape and historical interest. Bobbio on the Colli Piacentini was a very important medieval cultural center with its Abbey of San Colombano; Bardi, Torrechiara, Corniglio, retain their castles – like many other towns in the Parma Apennines; Pievepelago, Porretta Terme, Sestola are tourism centers of Frignano and Porrettese.
      Valleys and Lidos of Comacchio – This plain of Comacchio delimited to the north by the southern branches of the Po Delta, to the east by the Adriatic Sea with its seaside resorts: Lido di Volano, Lido di Spina, Lido degli Estensi, Porto Garibaldi, Lido degli Scacchi, Lido di Pomposa, Lido delle Nazioni; in the internal plain the Valli di Comacchio, swamps theater of an intense fishing activity. Comacchio with its lagoon atmospheres and Pomposa with its Abbey are its art centers.
Romagna
      Romagna plain – Ravenna is the main city of Romagna and the richest center of history and important monuments which fortunately survived intact the wear and tear of time and man tampering. Her Byzantine mosaics have reserved her a place on the list of UNESCO World Heritage monuments. Imola, Faenza, Forlì, Cesena with their fortresses recall the past of Lordships defeated one by one by Cesare Borgia, at the death of which they were then incorporated into the State of the Church.
      Tuscan-Marche Apennines of Romagna – The Apennine reliefs of Romagna contrast with the Tuscan and Marche mountains. Until contemporary times the mountains south of Forlì constituted Tuscan Romagna, that is that part of the Apennine territory that reached up to 10 kilometers from Forlì and which had been the domain of the Medici and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, remaining Tuscan territory even after the Unification until 1923. Terra del Sole was a city built from scratch and fortified by the Medici, who made it the capital of Tuscan Romagna. Castrocaro Terme is a famous spa as well as Bagno di Romagna. Valmarecchia, on the other hand, has often changed its territorial belonging: it was from the Marches, Romagna, Urbino, Rimini; finally divided between Romagna and Marche. Following a popular referendum in 2009, almost all of its territory was brought together within the Romagna borders. Novafeltria, Pennabilli, Carpegna, San Leo, Verucchio, Sant’Arcangelo di Romagna are its important centers.
      Romagna Riviera – The first timid attempts at seaside tourism made their appearance in the first decades of the nineteenth century in this sea land populated by fishermen and farmers in the countryside behind; land to tell the truth a little ‘backward and economically not exactly thriving. Well-being made it explode with mass tourism; the proliferation of bathing establishments, hotel settlements and second homes and has created an uninterrupted conurbation for tens of kilometers from the Ravenna, Cesena and Rimini coast well beyond the border of the Marche. Rimini, the true capital of the entire Adriatic coast, has benefited from it, as well as Cattolica, Riccione, Cervia, Cesenatico and many other coastal centers.

Urban centers of Emilia

Bologna – Bologna la Dotta, because it is the seat of the oldest and for a long time the most prestigious university in Europe; but also Bologna is fat, because hunger is not a good ally of the study. Here then the renown of its mortadella and its tortellini goes hand in hand with its cultural traditions, the beauty of its arcades and its monumental streets, of San Petronio and the Madonna of San Luca which dominates from the top of a hill and watch over the city.
Ferrara – The city and the Este family are an inseparable combination. The house of Este had Ferrara from the early thirteenth century until the end of the sixteenth century, when it returned to papal possessions. Such and such was the imprint given to it by the Este family, that no mention is made of the papal period, except to indicate it as the period of its decline. Some industries and many agricultural production are the sources of its economy; there is also a good tourist activity in this city of art which suffers a little from its peripheral position.
Modena – It was the capital of the Duchy when the Este family moved there after losing Ferrara. Important road and railway junction, it is an industrial city between the Secchia and Panaro rivers. Its Duomo is a magnificent Romanesque work of art cited in all art history manuals. Of its rich gastronomy, the famous Modena zampone is known nationally.
Parma – The city of Parma ham and violet, Maria Luigia and Verdi, Parmigiano Reggiano and the University, the beautiful Romanesque Cathedral and Correggio, the Farnese and Parmigianino, the Bourbons and the Certosa di Parma di Stendhalian memory: there are many excellences and beauties, the charm and myths of this city that still lives as if it were always a capital.
Piacenza – Little sister in the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, it was the first capital for a short time. At the western edges of the region, it looks more to Milan than to Bologna, it is from Emilia but also a little Lombard. Road and railway junction, on the right bank of the Po, retains a beautiful historic center with considerable monuments and an elegant urban layout.
Reggio Emilia – It was a city of Roman foundation along the Via Emilia. Free Municipality, it was then part until the Unity of the Duchy of Modena. It was the center of fervent Risorgimento activity, which led it to be the cradle of the Tricolor. It has a solid economy based on agricultural trade and a good industrial structure. Its historic center has a medieval urban layout.

Urban centers of Romagna

Cattolica – Last strip of land before the Marche region, is a seaside town with a long beach from east to west just over 2 km. The bathing establishments are very well equipped and provide services for the enjoyment of families with children. Animation, kindergarten, swimming pools, whirlpools, beach volleyball courts etc. The city of Cattolica has very distant origins, when Ravenna was the capital of the Byzantine possessions (6th and 8th centuries). From the fishing tradition and shipyards, it has transformed over time into a tourist resort. Its main attractions are the aquarium, the seaport, the tourist dock, the pedestrian center, the mermaid square with the dancing fountains.
Cesena – Industrial agricultural center and commercial center located on the Via Emilia, the city developed at the foot of its fortress, a bulwark and symbol of the power of the Malatesta family who in the fifteenth century held the Lordship; its historic center retains many traces of that period. The city is also famous for its racecourse. .
Faenza – In the 15th and 16th centuries Faenza reached the peak of the artistic production of majolica, which made its name known in the world to such an extent that faience is the term used to indicate majolica in many European languages. Located, like many other cities, along the Via Emilia, it has a remarkable historical center of epoch and taste mainly from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Forlì – It is the Forum Livii of the Romans. It was then the Municipality, then the Lordship of the Ordelaffi. Its historic center has a structure dating back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Imola – It has beautiful Renaissance buildings and a fortress. It is a city of commerce and industry, which has grafted onto an original agricultural economy. It marks the transition from Emilia to Romagna.
Ravenna – It is the triumph of Byzantine art in Italy. It was the capital of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th and 6th centuries, then of the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Byzantine Exarchate, and has preserved the splendid monuments with which Galla Placidia, Odoacre, Theodoric embellished it. The astonishing mosaics of its churches immortalize the art and architecture that marks the moment of transition and mixing between the Byzantine and Roman worlds. Its Christian monumental complex has been a World Heritage Site since 1996. In Ravenna, Dante Alighieri died in 1321, of which he preserves the monumental temple-shaped tomb.
Rimini – It is the symbol of beach holidays especially for families with children, but it also has countless entertainment centers for young people. Started in the nineteenth century, seaside tourism has found an unstoppable development here, which has spread the city along the coast, with deep sandy beaches. Rimini has now created a conurbation with the seaside resorts to the north and south of the city, which stretches for tens and tens of kilometers. Its historic center, quiet and extraneous to the teeming confusion of the modern city, is characterized above all by the Roman Arch of Augustus and from the Malatesta Temple.