A few kilometers from Bologna, an enchanted village and an imposing fortress, intense traditions and flavors, a day to live.
What will we do:
Dozza Imolese is one of the most beautiful villages in Italy, we meet it leaving the Via Emilia immediately after Castel S. Pietro to enter the Imola hills 30 km from Bologna, on the valley of the river Sellustra. The identity of this village takes on artistic hues with paintings that decorate the landscape of alleys and houses, giving a bright touch to the country that has transformed it into a festival of colors in the open air.
As soon as we arrive we are greeted by the majestic beauty of the fortress that seems to be one with the rest of the country in its characteristic ship shape, enclosed within the ancient walls of the Rocca Sforzesca, built on the ruins of ancient manors of the thirteenth century.
But let's leave the fortress for later, first let yourself be carried away by the colorful beauty of the village, at every corner a painting, at every street a sensation, at every square a surprise. Dozza, with the streets still in stone and the slow scent of the passage of time in harmony with nature, the windows that seem to speak to us, wall stamps that invite us to smile, murals that seem to be one with the houses. All around the village a beautiful panoramic walk on the Sellustran Valley, the Via Sant'Anastasia.
And after much walking we return to the Rocca, the beginning and end of the village, crossing the drawbridge that leads us to discover the noble floors where you can still observe the Baroque and Renaissance furnishings and the weapons room. Above, the walkways on the walls offer wonderful views of the plain below, Bologna on one side, the sea on the other side.
We descend into the immense and beautiful underground where the Enoteca Regionale dell'Emilia Romagna is located, a precious treasure chest of all the oenological beauties of this region. Here we can taste the Albana, the typical wine of the territory, the first white to receive the DOCG mark, and a selection of the 800 and more labels that make up the wine list of this wine shop, all accompanied by the products of the region and a sommelier.
In September, every two years, an event "The Painted Wall" is organized that accompanies tourists on a journey through stories and small magic up to the Sforza Fortress that embraces the country physically and harmoniously making it look like a ship of which she, the Rocca is the Castello di Poppa or Cassero.
Nearby: The Pieve di S. Lorenzo, the thirteenth-century convent of Monte del Rè, now transformed into a Resort and the seventeenth-century Sanctuary Madonna del Calanco (the Calanchi, hill formations typical of the region).
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