Or to give it its official name, Santuario di Madonna di San Luca. This beautiful church sits at the top of a long walk through quintessentially Bolognese porticoes.
In fact, the Portico di San Luca, is the longest covered walkway in the world, and boy does it feel like it! The long walk up to San Luca is one of the hardest things I've done in a long, long time. There is a tourist bus available from the centre, and although I'm glad I did the walk now, I wasn't feeling so enthused at the time!
We had walked a decent amount by the time we reached the traditional start of the walk, as we decided to depart from our base on Via Santo Stefano. I knew it was a relatively long walk, but didn't realise just how steep, and unrelenting, the incline was.
I may be being a tad dramatic, as I'm slightly out of shape, and this is the first real exercise I had partaken in, in a while. Some of the locals were walking up with gusto, a few mad folk were even jogging! One thing for sure, it's not easy.
As a huge football fan, I was delighted to catch a glimpse of Bologna FC's beautiful home stadium, The Renato Dall’Ara. I'm gutted I won't be able to attend a game during my time here, but I hope to pay a visit in the future.
We continued our walk to our destination, through the hundreds of porticoes that line the route. There are also a number of religious sculptures and art pieces that adorn the walk.
It isn't one straight path up to your destination, rather a series of turns that leaves the first-time walker in suspense as to when the climb would eventually end. I won't lie, I may have sworn on more than one occasion when I would make a turn, and see a load of steps or a steep path ahead of me. Demoralising isn't the word.
Eventually, though, we made it! I like how there is a cross that marks the culmination of your journey. I felt I needed some divine inspiration to make it up the final few steps!
At the top, this was me in all my sweaty, exhausted glory.
There is also pure beauty, and your reward for thousands of gruelling steps is this incredible basilica.
I was yet to realise that there were even more steps ahead of me, and had to summon a bit more energy to visit the dome of San Luca, the highest open dome in Europe. It costs 5 Euros, but it is certainly worth it. You walk up a tight spiral staircase, and you come out more or less directly on top of the dome. Your reward is a 180 degree of Bologna beneath you, and beautiful forestry and mountains to the side.
You can also visit inside the basilica for free, and there is a crypt you can explore, but we didn't pay the couple of euros for that.
Anxiety wise, I wasn't too bad, despite being exhausted and massively out of breath. Facilities wise, there are toilets you pay 50 cents for, a couple of vending machines, and pleasingly, a free water tap where you can top off your bottles. Hydration is key.
After a brief rest, we made the long walk back down to Bologna, stopping off for a nice cool drink, and then some aperitivo closer to home. We arrived back to the apartment exhausted, with nearly 20,000 steps walked, a lot of that on an incline.
Looking back a week or so later, there's definite pride in what I achieved. I realise that this post may come across negative, but I assure you, the walk is worth all the effort. It's one of the best things you can do in Bologna.
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