Leaning towers bologna basilica luca. Order excursions Online
In a previous post about Bologna, I just . Admire its cozy streets!
And he ended his story at the moment when he reached the two high towers of Bologna.
They are quite iconic for Bologna and are even symbols of the city!
So today I decided to dedicate a separate post to them!
The towers are impressive in their height! They were visible from almost every corner of the city! They are located right in the center of the city on the square. Piazza di Porta Ravegnana and all the main streets of the city converge to them.
Why are they so interesting?
The highest of them - Asinelli Tower. Its height is 97 meters, which is very high for a structure built in 1109.
And the one below - Garisenda Tower. Its height is much lower, about 48 meters, it was built in the same period as the Asinelli tower.
When you look at the two of them, they look unreal and amazing. But they are built at such an angle that it seems as if they are falling on top of each other.
To the tower Asinelli could go up. Of course, we decided to do this, despite the fact that there is no elevator inside!
Asinelli the tower is open to everyone in spring from 9.00 - 18:00, in summer until 19:00, in winter until 17:00.
Well, we went inside, we were met by a rather unfriendly entrance!
Cost of climbing to the top of the tower only 3 euros!
Here is such a ticket! With a seal and even a handwritten ticket number!
We went slowly upstairs, completely unaware of what awaits us ahead, and that made it more interesting to go!
When you walk inside, you see the old brickwork of that time and understand the very structure of the tower.
There is very little space inside the Asinelli tower, a narrow spiral wooden staircase with 498 steps leads to the very top. When you climb it, you get the feeling of some kind of additional excursion, of course it’s not easy to go, especially when you have backpacks weighing about 10 kilograms behind you, but we travel with backpacks like that, there’s nothing to be done about it. But so very interesting! And enjoy the ride!
As I wrote earlier, there is no elevator here, there is only one route to the Asinelli tower up and then also down the spiral staircase, so narrow that in some places you or you have to "yield" so that you can disperse when descending or ascending.
Fortunately, along the way there are several special platforms where you can safely stop and rest.
But, despite such difficult conditions, people go constantly and of completely different ages, both the elderly and children, not paying attention to almost 1000 steps in both directions.
There are many signs along the way. For example, this inscription M.87 Ghirlandina Di Modena. It meant that we were 87 meters above the Ghirlandina tower in Modena.
Here is a list of the tallest towers in Italy:
In about 15-20 minutes we conquered the tower and reached highest point! The reward for not an easy climb was just an incredible view of the whole city!
Another one was immediately visible. distinguishing feature cities, identical roofs!
Down below Garisenda tower.
From above, you can clearly see how the Bolognese competently use the balconies and roofs of houses. They plant trees, flowers, set tables and enjoy life!
And some just put sunbeds and sunbathe. It is clearly visible to the right of the frame.
From the top, another great view of the palace Palazzo d "Accursio, near which I walked in the morning.
Palace Palazzo d "Accursio taken from the tower at a higher resolution of 2500px:
Palazzo d'Accursio
More towers are visible from above, I made out a couple. But I was on the highest tower in the city!
A prominent building from above, - Palace and Residence Cassa di Risparmio.
The road below with cars was like a toy!
Visible in the distance oldest park Bologna, - Giardino della Montagnola.
Basilica Santa Maria della Vita.
And here is the world-famous Tuscan vineyards in the distance!
Click the links below to view panoramas taken from Asinelli towers in higher resolution 2500px:
Asinelli Tower
Asinelli Tower №2
Asinelli Tower №3
You can also look at the panorama of the street Via Francesco Rizzoli in 2500px resolution from the link below:
Via Francesco Rizzoli
Having examined the whole city from all sides, an hour later we decided to go down.
In fact, this is just a small part of those towers that have survived in the city. They say that in medieval times in the period of 12-13 centuries, there were at least 200 such towers!
This is how great it looked:
The reasons for the construction of so many towers are not clear. One hypothesis is that the richest families used them for offensive or defensive purposes. It was possible both to defend against the invaders, and to engage in reconnaissance from above! And also the huge height showed the social prestige of the noble families of those times.
These are striking because the towers were built in the 12th century.
Unfortunately, during the 13th and 14th centuries, most of these towers were almost completely demolished or destroyed. Only sketches have been preserved, by which you can see what the city was like at that time!
Many of the surviving towers were subsequently used as prisons for prisoners, some as residences and shops.
The last demolition of the towers took place not so long ago, in the 20th century, in connection with the restructuring of the city. It is a pity that the towers have not survived to this day! Today one could be proud of a small, but a handful of such old medieval skyscrapers with a 9 century history!
Of about 200 towers originally present, about 10 can still be seen today.
Among them:
1) Azzoguidi tower, also called Altabella (from a height of 61 m),
2) Prendiparte tower called CORONATA (60 m)
3) Scappi tower (39 m)
4) Uguzzoni tower (32 m)
5) Guidozagni Tower
6) Galluzzi Tower
7) And the famous Two Fortresses: Asinelli Tower (97 m) and Garisenda Tower (48 m).
Church of San Martino.
bologna canal, which was the center of trade in the 13th century, has survived to this day!
There is one place in the city that overlooks the canal, this corner of the city is also known as Little Venice.
Theater L "Arena del Sole.
Click the link below to view the panorama. theater L "Arena del Sole in higher resolution 2500px:
L "Arena del Sole
Then we reached the oldest park in Bologna, - Giardino della Montagnola. We walked there a bit. It was quite small, but cozy.
In addition to the towers, in Bologna you can still see some fortified locks that were the city walls of the 12th century, unfortunately they were almost completely destroyed. Here, near the park, the ruins of an old castle were found.
Walks along the park Via Dell'Indipendenza.
Click the link below to view the panorama. streets Via Dell "Indipendenza in higher resolution 2500px:
Via Dell'Indipendenza
Beautiful Flowers on the balcony of one of the houses.
We were heading to the station, on the way we looked back again and looked at the Asinelli tower.
A rather interesting Durex condom vending machine was also found. Good decision! I decided to photograph it.
Walking around Bologna was unreal! She is very beautiful! And the Towers just amazed me! 9 centuries ago Bologna was a huge medieval city with 200 skyscrapers!
I repeat once again that it is a pity that only a small part of them survived! But it is so precious to touch them! Many have not even heard of these towers, all because the towers, and Bologna itself, are not as popular as some other places in Italy. But Bologna is no worse, and sometimes even better!
You can see my Bologna itinerary here:
Bologna itinerary.
By evening, I again had to say goodbye to another wonderful place, but there was nothing to be done, the next Italian city was waiting for me, - Milan! And the Italo train rushed me there at a speed of 300 km / h.
Previous posts
Bologna is often referred to as the "city of a hundred towers". There are now more than 20 of them in the city - this is a legacy of the times when almost all of Bologna consisted of such structures. There were about two hundred such "skyscrapers" (the number 180 was found in the archives), and the construction of the very first of them dates back to the 11th century.
It is there that Due Torri - Garisenda and Asinelli, the most famous of the city's attractions, are located.
Description of the attraction, history of construction
Building legends
Like any other attractions that have rich history, Due Torri are surrounded by legends that have been told for centuries.
For example, La torre Asinelli has its own romantic history. Once there lived a poor young man in the city - he had only a shack and a few pack donkeys.
He was nicknamed Azinelli (translated from Italian it means "donkey").
He made a living by delivering sand and rubble from the Reno River on his donkeys for the construction of city buildings. One day, returning from the river, he noticed a girl in the window of a rich house.
Gaining courage, Azinelli came to the girl's father - to ask for the hand of the beauty. He laughed and replied: "If you build the highest tower in the city, so be it - I will give my daughter to you as a wife."
The rich man thought that this would scare away the poor groom ... But Asinelli accepted the challenge. He started working twice as hard to start saving money. And one day, while working on the river, a young man was surprised to find a treasure trove of gold coins at the bottom. This allowed him to hire workers and start building the tallest tower in the city. Asinelli kept his word - the tower named after him remains the highest in the city today. And the young man himself was able to marry his chosen one.
According to another legend, the construction of two towers located ten meters apart is just the result of a rivalry between two influential Bologna families, Azinelli and Garisenda. The builders who erected these structures did not pay due attention to technology, trying to rise above the opponent and finish building faster.
The ancient city of Bologna is located almost in the very center of Italy, in the region Emilia-Romagna. Bologna in its popularity among tourists is inferior to such Italian cities, as we say, Venice or Florence, however, in our opinion, this is not entirely deserved. After all, Bologna has a glorious history, and the city itself is rich in historical and architectural monuments. One of the main symbols of the city are the famous towers of bologna, which largely determine the appearance of the city and which will be discussed in this article.
The towers of Bologna are a group of medieval buildings located in the very center of the city. There are many towers in Bologna, but the most famous are the “Two Towers”.
It should be noted that in the Middle Ages, especially in the 12th and 13th centuries, the construction of huge towers, not inferior in height to modern skyscrapers, was quite common. For example, in Bologna, the total number of towers in the Middle Ages reached two hundred. The number is big.
Tower History
The reasons for the construction of the towers are still unclear. But the most popular version is the one according to which the towers were built by rich and noble Italian families in order to protect themselves. Indeed, each of the towers of Bologna is a real fortress, which is not easy to get inside.
In the 14th century, many of the towers of Bologna were destroyed or simply dismantled. Some of the towers changed their original purpose and began to serve as prisons, council buildings and even shops.
The greatest blow to the towers of Bologna was inflicted at the very beginning of the 20th century, when the city authorities started a general reconstruction of the historical center of Bologna. Fortunately, not all the towers of the city were destroyed, and today the towers of Bologna are one of the main historical monuments cities.
The most famous towers of the city are Prendipate Tower, 60 meters high, Scappi Tower, 39 meters high, Uguzzoni Tower, 32 meters high, which reaches a height of 61 meters. And, undoubtedly, two symbols of Bologna– Asinelli Tower (97 meters) and Garisenda Tower (48 meters). The last two towers are called “Two Towers”.
It must be said that for medieval city with his limited resources, building towers was not an easy task. The construction of a tower 60 meters high usually took from 3 to 10 years. At the same time, slaves and prisoners of war were mainly involved in the construction.
The main towers of Bologna "Two Towers"- is also notable for the fact that from the very beginning they were built at an angle, which is why they are also popularly called leaning towers. The towers were located in the very center of medieval Bologna, in the place where all the roads from the city gates intersected. These towers were built at the very beginning of the 12th century, and these towers got their name from the main sponsors of the construction.
Tower Asinelli often used by Italian scientists to conduct various kinds of experiments. During the Second World War, the tower housed a post of civil defense, whose task was to detect fires in Bologna during the bombing. After the war, a television antenna was installed at the top of the tower. Let us also add that the "Two Towers" were quoted several times by Dante in his "Divine Comedy".
"Two Towers" on the map
Leaning towers of Bologna (Italy) - description, history, location. Exact address, phone number, website. Reviews of tourists, photos and videos.
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The leaning towers of Bologna are not as widely known as the Leaning Towers of Pisa, but they are just as much a symbol of the city in which they are located. The highest, Asinelli, does not tilt as much as its neighbor, Garisenda, but it is much higher: the height of the Asinelli tower exceeds 97 m. This makes it the tallest historical building in Old Bologna and the tallest "leaning" tower in the world.
The tilt angle of the Asinelli tower from the vertical axis is 1.3°. It would seem that not so much, but with the height of the structure, this leads to a deviation of the upper part of the tower by more than 2 meters. Nevertheless, Asinelli is able to survive in this position, but her neighbor, Garisenda, was less fortunate: the deviation of that initially exceeded 3 m, and this seriously threatened both the building itself and those around it. Garisenda was shortened three times, and now its height is only 48 m. But it is she, and not the taller "sister", that is mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy.
The height of the Asinelli tower exceeds 97 m. This makes it the tallest historical building in Old Bologna and the tallest "leaning" tower in the world.
Building towers was, in principle, fashionable among the Italian nobility in the Middle Ages. The towers served as living quarters and fortified citadels, and also demonstrated greatness and asserted the power of their owner. In Bologna alone, today you can see about 20 towers, despite the fact that initially, in the 13th century, there were about one and a half hundred of them.
The design of the towers was more or less the same. Each had a foundation, reinforced with pillars driven into the ground, sprinkled with stone. The base was made of large stone blocks, and the walls became thinner the higher they were. Usually there were two walls: a thicker inner one and a thinner outer one, and the gap between them was covered with rubble.
In the 18th century, Giovanni Guglielmo studied gravity by throwing objects from the Asinelli Tower.
Of course, many legends are connected with the construction of the "falling" towers, including the one that promises a young man in love the hand of a beauty only after the construction of the tallest tower in the city. However, the historical truth is rather that construction technologies in those days left much to be desired. In order to erect a tower of a typical design with a height of about 60 m, it took from 3 to 10 years of work. According to vague data, the Asinelli family of the same name began to build at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. A few centuries later, the city took possession of the tower, and a prison was set up here. The neighboring towers were connected by a kind of wooden bridge, but it burned down during a city fire. During the Second World War, the Asinelli tower was used as an observation post, and later as a TV tower.
Today, the Asinelli Tower can be reached by a spiral staircase, which has almost 500 steps. Garisenda is closed for viewing from the inside.
Other towers of Bologna worth paying attention to are Azzogildi, aka Altabella (61 m), Prendiparte, aka Coronata (60 m), Scappi (39 m), Uguzzoni (32 m), Gildozagni and Galluzzi.
Leaning towers are located at the crossroads leading to the five gates of the old city wall, and it is impossible not to find them.
Let's take a break before the highly informative stories about Bolognese churches and take a walk around the city.
The symbol of Bologna are the Two Towers - Garisenda and Asinelli. It is generally believed that in the communal era (XII-XIII centuries) there were up to 100 towers in Bologna, now only 24 remain. The towers became victims of wars, fires, decrees of the papal government and grandiose plans for the reconstruction of the city (the last "victims" fell in 1918 1919); besides, the surviving towers are fairly "sunk" and are almost invisible in ordinary urban development. But in spite of everything in the world, a couple of towers built between 1109 and 1119 have survived more or less intact in the center.
The right (larger) one is called Asinelli, its current height is 97.2 m, although researchers, based on the thickness of the walls at the base, suggest that the original height was 25 meters more. The left (smaller) one is called Garisenda, its height is 48 m (according to calculations it was 60 m) 
The vaunted Leaning Tower of Pisa did not even stand next to our (I am telling you on behalf of the Bolognese) Garisenda!
And you can climb the Asinelli Tower for a symbolic reward. True, inside there is a tiring climb up a narrow steep staircase, with practically no areas for recreation. Of course, I didn't omg miss it and...was punished for being overconfident. Let me remind you that it rained continuously on January 2, 3 and 4, and on the 5th it stopped only at dinnertime. Just on January 5, I returned from Modena around 3 pm and decided (oh, the madness of youth, senile insanity!) To look at Bologna from above. Alas, the air was so saturated with moisture that the photos turned out gloomy and unfortunate, and I myself was chilled at the top. True, there were many such fools, and this served as considerable consolation)))
So, we study Bologna from above. 
Back to you turned Cathedral San Pietro. We will go there again, although of all the Bolognese churches I have seen, the cathedral has left the least
in front of you main square Bologna - Piazza Maggiore. To her right are two magnificent examples of the Middle Ages - Palazzo Podesta and Palazzo Enzo. To the left of the square rises another symbol of Bologna - the Basilica of San Petronio (yes, with an unfinished facade)
Another look at San Petronio. And in front of him, the dome of the church of Santa Maria della Vita brazenly climbs into the frame.
But in the fog you can see two palazzos Podesta and Enzo: 
The bitterest disappointment of the trip is the Madonna di San Luca Basilica on the hill. On the afternoon of January 2, I hoped to see Bologna from there, and there was such fog that literally 20 meters away nothing could be seen. However, I will talk about this later. As you can see, on January 4, the fog is still there, on the mountain and on the mountain... 
And this is the monastery of Santo Stefano.
Well, now let's go down and go back in time. So, we have January 2 again, it's raining, but the stubborn author stands on the porch of the Basilica of San Petronio and photographs Piazza Maggiore. 
In front of you is Palazzo Accursio (named after the original owner - the famous Bolognese glossator) or Palazzo Communale (XIII-XVII centuries) 
In two photographs, the Palazzo Podesta (XIII-XV centuries) is captured in parts, originally the Bolognese podestas lived here, and then the local gentlemen of Bentivoglio. Behind this palazzo is another - Palazzo Enzo; we saw it all from the tower of Asinelli.
Palazzo Banki (XVI century)
Between the two Palazzi Accursio and Podestà there is another square - Piazza Nettuno, on which stands the fountain of the same name. The fountain of Neptune was made in 1563-1565 according to the project of Tommaso Laureti, and Neptune himself was sculpted by Giambologna.
