Bologna is a city in northern Italy, the administrative center of the province of the same name, and the Emilia-Romagna region. The city has about 400 000 inhabitants.
Bologna is the oldest university center in Europe: the University of Bologna was founded in 1088.

The standard of living in the city is one of the highest in Italy due to the developed industry and a good location at the crossroads of transportation corridors. Bologna's main transportation is represented by buses, trolleybuses, cabs, and metro.

Bologna is called the culinary capital of Italy. Bologna is the birthplace of not only bolognese sauce, but also tortellini, sugo bolognese, salsiccia, and mortadella sausages. Speaking of Bologna, locals describe it with three epithets: fat, scholarly, and red. This characteristic seems unsightly only at first, but in fact, it reveals in detail the national flavor of the city. Bologna is famous for one of the most appetizing variants of Italian cuisine, a huge number of students, and brick-red roofs, which are abundant here.

Among the city's eye-catching features are its indoor galleries. Italians joke that in Bologna you can easily do without an umbrella: under cozy arched vaults, you can cross almost the whole city. Snow-white and ochre galleries contrast with peach-colored walls and create that very sunny mood for which tourists come to Bologna from different parts of the world!