My name is Maurice, I'am switzerland from Zurich but my parents are Italian from Bergamo area.
So a couple of years ago we decided to visit some different towns of Italy, the one who knocked me among all was surely Bologna.
And I don't want to mean the wide middle-aged City center with the Two Towers or the oldest and well - known all around the world University but especially the huge, amazing and fascinating net of Porticoes who embraces all the utban agglomerate.
But to catch the feeling, the real feeling, you have to walk under them in a rainy or very hot day and it will like to be confortly sit in your sitting-room but not alone and able to live and perfectly understand the real behaviour of people who lives here!
In fact like the modern videogames Porticoes are INTERACTIVE but they are all TRUES...Here people get the joy to live and to do something together and Porticoes, are the glue that make it possible...
They are also very different each others: If you ralenty your path and look around the arches you can discover lots of little thing you can't imagine to find here: hidden Madonna altars for an old wow received, old graffity with Insignia and prices of ancient whorehouses and also a window that, If you open it, you can discover a Water Channel that passes between houses as a little Venice!
It's difficult to choose the Greatest Portico, the Best or the Oldest but surely you can't neglect the Portico of S. Luca, the Longest at the World (just about 4 km.!), that join downtown with the Basilica on the Colle dela Guardia from where you can tast a wonderful landscape of the Towered Bologna.
They are in all 666 arches and this number could sound strangely linked to a Holy Basilica... but this is only one of the hidden Mystery of the City that Porticoes keep inside them...
To finish, in my opinion, YES the Porticoes of Bologna really DESERVES the World Heritage List 2021!