Bologna help......not Oscar Meyer but Italy

Travel, Wine Tourism, and Restaurants Forum
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Either of you planning to do a balsamic vinegar producer visit? There are organised tours out of the tourist office / privately organised. Not cheap, but very interesting. FWIW we self-organised ours in the same way we’d seek a winery visit. It still had a sizeable charge, but I suppose the upside was we got a tour for just the two of us, plus a mutually agreed date & time.

Scariest part is tasting the red, silver, gold labelled vinegars and thinking “that gold is pretty special”.

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Ian, We’re doing a cheese, ham, balsamic tour. Wine visits later when I get to Tuscany.

43

Hi;

Any other hotel recommendations for Bologna? The AC is sold out on points, and is priced high that weekend (auto parts show in town).

44

Cool, the advantage being the logistics of slotting each in, one after the other.

Be prepared for the impact when you enter the barrel ageing room - the aroma can be very intense.

45

We’ve yet to stay in a hotel in Bologna, and they can be very pricey. The tourist office are very helpful, so might be able to suggest options. What about an aparthotel/residence, which give basic hotel style facilities, but with self-contained apartments? Beyond that rental apartments (e.g. Halldis, Air B&B etc.) are a good option in Bologna, allowing freedom to graze the food shops. The last one we stayed in was a bit pokey, so not recommended. Prior to that there was a good one on Strada Maggiore - number 71 I think - very good open plan lounge / kitchen / diner, bedrooms ok, the main one much better than the 2nd one. However I can’t find it with the people we booked through before, so may be with someone else, or now off the market.

46

I did one of these, just be careful of the lunch (if your tour has a lunch). The one I did, the tour guide kept bragging about he’d stuff us like crazy at lunch. At lunch, we basically had sooooooo many courses/food/wine that I thought my insides would just burst. This is already after doing tastings at the above three locations as well (and getting partially stuffed). I think we might have nibbled on some leftovers from lunch as well that evening, but we didn’t eat any dinner since we were so stuffed from lunch!

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In such multi course meals, always track the style of dishes. If you’ve still not seen the pasta or risotto yet, then you better not be getting full - or you’re in real trouble [wow.gif] [wink.gif]

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Definitely! After the first round of dishes, all of us were looking at each other, thinking to ourselves, how “screwed” we were! It was family style but the portions were also big, and out of politeness had to also mostly finish the dishes before the next came out. Food was good, and even though we were uncomfortably full, we didn’t feel disgusting since the food was pretty clean/healthy? I chalk it up to the magic of homemade Italian food.

49

Paul and Ian; If you don’t mind…could you give me info on those tours. I do not know if we can fit one in but I would like the opportunity.


Cheers!
Marshall [cheers.gif]

50

This is the one I did: Bologna Food Experience: Factory Visits with Gourmet Lunch and Wine Tasting They pick you up early in the morning from your hotel and drop you back late afternoon, group tour so there’s a few stops to pick up people. Most of the tour is in the countryside outside of Modena, about an hour each way from Bologna.

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Marshall, I emailed you as too much info to post here.

52

Hi Marshall
Ours was self organised with Lambrusco producer Medice Ermete

We actually rendezvoused with them at their Lambrusco winery/factory which I think is this address:
13/A, v. Isaaco Newton
and they then drove us to their much more boutique balsamic vinegar site, which I think was the 2nd address, a few kms north of via Emilia
Ca’ de Medici
34, VIA DELLA STAZIONE

They were kind enough to drop us off in Sant’ Ilario which was easier to get back to Reggio from, plus giving us the opportunity to see a lesser visited town.

regards
Ian

p.s. if doing more than just the vinegar, I’d go for an organised tour. If just the balsamic vinegar visit, it’s worth considering organising direct. It might be a little (but not much) cheaper, but more importantly a personal tour and a say in the timing of the visit might be good.

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Thanks Paul…Very interesting stuff. This trip changes daily!

Cheers!
Marshall [wink.gif]

54

Marshall- what did you end up doing ? Excellent thread and looking at spending a few days to begin our trip if we pull the trigger for Sept.