Good Friday in Modena

Friday morning promised to be another beautiful day; the dawn was warm and bright with sun, which augured well for another day trip, this time to Modena, located about 20 minutes northwest of Bologna,

We walked to Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence and had a short wait of about 15 minutes – spent mainly standing and waiting for a self-service ticket machine. We had no sooner gotten out tickets for the outbound leg – for the return we just used out ticket-less email method – than the Eurostar for Bologna and points north pulled into the station. We got aboard, found our seats and settled in for the 60-minute ride to Bologna. We changed trains in Bologna and it seemed that we had had no sooner sat down than it was time to get up and get off in Modena.


The small train station in Modena appeared to have been recently remodeled or at least repainted. It was comfortable inside with a fairly typical Italian train station layout (ticket office in the central chamber and a small waiting room off to one side) while the exterior was quite striking, painted with in bold yellow with wrought iron trim and all-in-all was quite impressive. The layout for switching to busses from the train – if one needed to do that – appeared quite well laid out and looked up-to-date. Modena also uses electric trams as well as busses.


The Rough Guide claimed that the historic center of the town was an easy 10-minute walk from the station and that was certainly true. We left the station, angled a bit to the left and walked to the Piazzale Bruni, and were struck by an enormous church directly ahead of us. Our journey led us to the right away from the Piazza and up Corso Vittorio Emmanuel, a sweeping boulevard past wide side streets and gorgeously repainted and/or re-plastered buildings. We skirted the enormous Palazzo Ducale the home of the Este family after the Pope evicted them from Ferrara. (We are unclear as to whether this palazzo is open to the public.) We soon came to the medieval quarter of the city, in fact the historic center and the place you want to spend your afternoon in exploration. (photo: one of the newly replastered buildings.)

We found the tourist office, just off the Piazza Grande, and picked up a local city map to help us orient ourselves. One of the least helpful maps I might add and rather poorly done, it nevertheless served our needs just fine.


We stopped at a small café near the Piazza Grande and had a coffee and dolci and then strolled down Via Selmi to the lovely Via delle Rimembranze, a large green boulevard which encircles part of the city. We walked along past an abandoned military installation just like in Ferrara (and just like in Ferrara you’d never know it unless you looked hard to see the buildings were empty and had been so for some time).

We cut back toward the city center and walked through the public gardens skirting the edge of the Palazzo Ducale again, but this time on the opposite side from where we came in, and ended up back in the Piazza Grande. We had a superb luncheon buffet of local dishes at the Caffe Concerto Ristorante – very cool design, lots of space both inside and outside under one of the porticos overlooking the piazza – which is where we took our lunch. The food was delicious, and we can certainly recommend this place – they also have late night music during the spring and summer, live and DJ-driven. (Piazza Grande, ph. 059 222232. www.caffeconcertomodena.it.)


After spending a couple of hours just relaxing over pranzo and sipping a nice chilled Orvieto white wine we strolled back to the train station. As we suspected the trains were pretty packed it being Good Friday. In fact the one we were scheduled to take to Bologna in fact went on to Firenze but we had to get off in Bologna to change to a different train. Anyway, our connection, the Eurostar to Naples, was on time and again we were thankful we had reserved seats since it was standing room only – lots of families and tourists in transit today. We were equally thankful we had to go only a short distance. We didn’t envy the folks going to Naples. (photo: Piazza Grande; Caffe Concerto in the back to the right under the portico.)


Modena is clean, fresh and a nice place to spend an afternoon in just strolling – and the shopping can be less stress-free than in a place like Florence that’s for sure. Naturally it’s also a nice place to hang out while you’re waiting to pick up your brand-new Ferrari from the factory. (photo: synagogue in the historic center of the city.)

Wish you were here,

Steve