Bologna – Italy’s Most Liveable City

Bologna was just given the honor of being named  Italy’s most liveable city based on a survey by a business magazine in Italy. I spent four days in Bologna this past spring and truly enjoyed the city.  It  was  a very young city largely in part due to the university there and the number of students.

San Domenico Church in Bologna, Italy

In fact my accommodations there were in a  dorm at a university in a very nice area of the city. I had made these advance preparations through MonasteryStays.com,  a company that specializes in finding good clean inexpensive accommodations in monasteries and convents. When I arrived at my location I was surprised to find that it was actually on a floor of a dorm of San Tommaso University and there were students on the other floors. I thought it was cool and I immediately felt younger.

Bologna is home to the oldest university in the world and today it has over 100,000 students. The University of Bologna dates back to the year 1088 and is considered to be the oldest university in the western world. There are usually about 5000 international students here with another 2000 arriving each year on a rotating basis connected to exchange student programs.