Modena Day Trip from Bologna: How to Get There & What to Do

Modena is 18 to 30 minutes from Bologna Centrale on a regional train that costs about €5 and needs no booking. That is the whole logistical problem, solved in one sentence, and it is why so many people based in Bologna come over for the day: a UNESCO World Heritage old town, the birthplace of Ferrari, and one of the best places to eat in Italy, in a city you can cross on foot in fifteen minutes.

The part nobody tells you is when to come. Several of Modena's best traditional kitchens serve lunch only, the covered market pulls its shutters down at 15:00, the bus to Maranello drops to six runs on a Sunday, and the tower climb depends on the season. Get the timing right and one day here is genuinely enough. Get it wrong and you spend it walking past closed doors. We live and host in the centre, and what follows is the version we give our own guests.

How to get from Bologna to Modena

Modena and Bologna sit on the same axis — the Roman Via Emilia — and both are stops on the main Milan–Bologna line. That means frequent, cheap connections all day.

By train (the easy way)

Regional trains cover the 40 kilometres in 18 to 30 minutes, depending on how many intermediate stops the service makes, with roughly 25 regional departures a day in each direction. Modena's station handles far more traffic than that — around 257 trains a day, including Intercity and some Frecce — but the regional service is the one that matters to you.

Twenty-five departures is frequent enough to improvise through the middle of the day, and not so frequent that you can ignore the timetable at either end. Look up the first train and the last one; wing everything between.

• Fares are fixed and start at about €5 one way. They do not rise as the date approaches, so there is no advantage to booking early and no penalty for buying on the platform.
• No booking, no seat reservation. Buy at a station machine, at a tobacconist or in the Trenitalia app. If you miss your train the ticket is not lost — a regional fare buys the route, not the departure.
• Validation. Digital regional tickets have validated themselves automatically since 2024, at the scheduled departure time of the train you chose. Paper tickets bought at a counter or machine may still need stamping before you board, so ask when you buy: an unvalidated paper ticket counts as no ticket.
• Modena's station is a flat 10-minute walk from Piazza Grande, straight down Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. No taxi, no bus, no connection.
• Third-party apps resell the same journey with a booking fee attached. On a €5 ticket, buy direct.

Two last notes. This is a commuter line with no reservable seats, and between roughly 7:30 and 9:00 it fills with people going to work — with a large case, aim for mid-morning. And a few high-speed services call at Modena, but for a half-hour hop the premium rarely pays: if you are continuing to Milan or Florence afterwards, buy the fast ticket to Bologna Centrale and add a separate regional leg rather than hunting for a through fare. Airports and every other route in are in getting to Modena.

Which train to catch, and the one going home

Aim to leave Bologna between about 9:30 and 10:30. That puts you in the centre between 10:00 and 11:00 — the Albinelli market still fully open, Piazza Grande quiet, a lunch table reached before the kitchens fill. Leave at noon and you arrive to find the market shutting and the afternoon half spent.

The reason the morning train matters here is the food, not the sightseeing. Modena inverts the usual Italian pattern: dinner is not the important meal, lunch is. Trattoria Aldina, above the market, serves lunch only, Monday to Saturday, and takes no reservations — you turn up, and at 13:15 you queue. Hosteria Giusti is lunch only, from four tables. Trattoria Ermes does dinner only Thursday to Saturday. Arrive at 13:00 and the best table in the city is gone. All of them, with hours and phone numbers, are in where to eat in Modena.

Leave Bologna at	In the centre by	What that buys you
~08:30	~09:15	Market at its best, empty cathedral, a full morning
~09:30–10:30	~10:15–11:15	The version we recommend: market, Duomo, lunch at 12:30, full afternoon
~12:00	~12:45	Lunch straight away, one afternoon activity, market missed
~14:00	~14:45	One museum and an aperitivo. Do not expect to eat properly

Going home is the other half of the problem. We are not printing a "last train" time: it changes with every timetable revision, and a wrong one is worse than none. Check your date in the Trenitalia app the evening before. The shape of it is this — the last useful departures from Modena are in the late evening, well before midnight, and they thin out after the commuter peak. Fine for an aperitivo at 18:30. Not fine for a dinner that starts, as Modenese dinners do, at 19:30 or 20:00 and runs to ten.

So the honest rule: a day trip from Bologna is a lunch trip. Want dinner here, and you will either eat with one eye on the clock or stay the night.

By car (only if you're going further)

Modena is about 35 minutes from Bologna on the A1, covering the same 40 km as the train — but there is a trap in it that catches a lot of visitors.

The historic centre is a ZTL, a limited-traffic zone enforced by cameras and active 24 hours a day. Cross the line without a permit and the fine arrives in the post weeks later. A satnav will route you straight through it: it does not know about the cameras. We map the boundary in our guide to the Modena ZTL.

So park outside and walk in. The reliable choice is the underground Parcheggio del Centro beneath Parco Novi Sad — 1,720 spaces, staffed, open 24 hours, entrances on via Fontanelli 18 and viale Monte Kosica, five minutes from the cathedral and comfortably outside the zone. It costs €1.50 an hour from 6am to 8pm, €0.50 overnight, first 15 minutes free.

Our honest advice: for a pure Modena day, skip the car. Bring it only if your real destination is the wider Motor Valley — Lamborghini at Sant'Agata, Pagani at San Cesario — where public transport does not reach conveniently.

Flying into Bologna Airport (BLQ)

If you are arriving rather than day-tripping, the Aerbus coach runs airport to Modena direct in about 50 minutes, 12 times a day, every day of the year, €15 one way (€10 reduced) with luggage free. The alternative — Marconi Express monorail to Bologna Centrale (7 minutes 30, €12.80) plus a regional train — comes to roughly €18 and one change. Take the coach unless you have just watched one leave. Full detail, including the last connections at night, is in getting to Modena.

Is Modena worth a day trip from Bologna?

For most people, yes. Half an hour on a train buys a UNESCO World Heritage centre — the Romanesque Duomo, the leaning Ghirlandina and Piazza Grande, inscribed together in 1997 — the birthplace of Ferrari, tortellini in brodo, dry Lambrusco, traditional balsamic, and a city where you can hear your own footsteps on the cobbles.

The counterweight decides whether you should come. Modena is not a monument city. There is no Colosseum, no Uffizi, no queue to join. You can walk the historic centre end to end in fifteen minutes, and much of what people come for — the balsamic producers, the Ferrari factory museum at Maranello — is not in the centre at all. If your idea of a good day is a dense list of sights, Bologna and Florence serve you better. If it is a market, a cathedral you can have almost to yourself and a two-hour lunch, this is the trip.

We argue both sides properly in is Modena worth visiting, and the full inventory is in what to see in Modena.

A perfect day in Modena: an hour-by-hour itinerary

Everything below is walkable — the Duomo, the market, the museums and the best tables are all within a fifteen-minute stroll of one another.

Morning (≈ 10:00–12:30) — the UNESCO heart

• Piazza Grande and the Duomo (≈ 45 min). Begun in 1099 by the architect Lanfranco and carved by Wiligelmo — one of the first buildings in Europe where architect and sculptor both signed their work. Inside, the rood screen by the Campionese masters, terracottas by Antonio Begarelli and San Geminiano in the crypt. Outside, Wiligelmo's Genesis reliefs on the façade and, at the Porta della Pescheria on the north side, the first carved King Arthur scene in Italy. Entry is free, but it is a working church and closes to visitors during Mass. The full story: the Duomo and the Ghirlandina.
• The Ghirlandina (≈ 15 min). Modena's symbol: an 89-metre civic and bell tower whose octagonal spire was finished by 1319. It guards a copy of the Secchia Rapita, the stolen bucket of the medieval rivalry with Bologna. Opening days vary by season, so check before you build the day around the climb.
• Mercato Albinelli (≈ 30–45 min). The covered food market, built in 1931 in Art Nouveau style, with stalls run by the same families since it opened. Write the hours down: stalls Monday to Saturday 7:00–15:00, Saturdays to 19:00 from mid-September to the end of May, closed Sunday, and closed 25 December and Easter Sunday. The restaurants inside keep their own hours, 12:00–15:00 and 18:30–23:00 daily, and on Friday and Saturday evenings the hall reopens 18:00 to midnight with food stalls. People turn up at 15:30 expecting lunch and find the shutters down; it happens daily.

Lunch (≈ 12:30–14:00) — tortellini and Lambrusco

Treat this as a fixed appointment, not something you sort out when you get hungry. Kitchens serve roughly 12:30 to 14:30, and the places locals rate fill up. Three options, in ascending order of certainty:

• Trattoria Aldina, via Albinelli 40, first floor, above the market. Lunch only, Monday to Saturday, around €25–35. No reservations — be at the door at 12:15, not 13:15. Closed all August.
• Ristorante Da Danilo, via Coltellini 31, behind Piazza Grande. Lunch and dinner Monday to Saturday, €30–40, famous for its boiled-meat trolley. Book on 059 225498 and your table is certain, which on a day trip is worth a lot.
• Trattoria Pomposa al Re Gras, piazza della Pomposa. Michelin Bib Gourmand, €25–35, tables on the square — which from May to September go first, so call ahead on 059 214881.

Then order the classics. Tortellini in brodo — hand-folded parcels of veal, pork, mortadella and Parmigiano in a clear capon broth — is the dish Modena makes better than almost anywhere; tagliatelle al ragù is the cold-weather answer. Drink dry sparkling Lambrusco, not the sweet stuff exported in the 1980s but the local DOC versions: Sorbara light and elegant, Grasparossa di Castelvetro fuller and darker. To graze instead, gnocco fritto and tigelle with salumi and soft cheese — Trattoria Il Fantino under the Ghirlandina does the informal version at €20–30, and a standing lunch at the market runs €10–15.

Two warnings that hit day-trippers hardest: August closes a lot of doors, and so does Sunday. The dishes are explained in the flavours of Modena; the restaurants, with closing weeks and phone numbers, in where to eat in Modena.

Afternoon (≈ 14:00–17:00) — choose one

A day trip has room for one big afternoon. Pick the one that calls to you.

Option A — the Enzo Ferrari Museum. Seven minutes on foot from the station, under its yellow bonnet-shaped roof designed by the studio of Jan Kaplický, beside the house where Enzo Ferrari was born. Hours are seasonal: 09:30–19:00 in April, May, September and October; 09:00–19:00 June to August; 09:30–18:00 November to March. Last admission is 18:15 April to October and 17:15 November to March. Closed 25 December, 1 January and 17 February. An adult ticket is €27 October–April, €32 May–September — but read the discount below before you pay that. Allow about an hour and a quarter.

Option B — balsamic vinegar. The real Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena DOP is cooked grape must aged a minimum of 12 years (25 for the Extravecchio) in a battery of small barrels of different woods, sold only in its 100 ml Giugiaro-designed bottle. On a shaving of Parmigiano it is nothing like the IGP vinegar sold as balsamic elsewhere.

The honest complication: almost every acetaia is in the countryside and needs a car, and a return taxi costs more than the tour. There is exactly one you can walk to — the Acetaia Comunale in the attic of the town hall, Piazza Grande 16, where the city ages its own vinegar under the roof tiles. Guided, booking required, maximum 20 people, €5, free under 12, tickets at the tourist office at Piazza Grande 14. As of August 2026: Fridays at 15:30 and 16:30, weekends and holidays at 10:30, 11:30, 15:30 and 16:30, with the English tour on Saturdays at 14:30 — book via visitmodena.it or +39 059 2032660. With a car, Acetaia Giusti, in the records since 1605 and the oldest in Italy, runs an hour-long tour and tasting free of charge at visit.giusti.com. Which producer suits you is the whole of our balsamic vinegar tour guide; the product itself is in Modena's black gold.

Option C — art, or Pavarotti. The Galleria Estense, top floor of the Palazzo dei Musei, holds the Este dukes' collection: Velázquez's portrait of Francesco I d'Este, a Bernini bust of the same duke, El Greco's Modena Triptych, a Correggio Madonna. In the same building the Biblioteca Estense guards the illuminated Bible of Borso d'Este. Open Tuesday to Saturday 8:30–19:15, Sunday 10:00–18:00, closed Monday, last entry half an hour before closing; €8, €2 for 18–25s, free under 18, free on the first Sunday of the month. Or go out to the Casa Museo Luciano Pavarotti, Stradello Nava 6, the house where the tenor spent his last years: daily 10:00–18:00, closed 1 January and 24–25 December.

Late afternoon (≈ 17:00–18:30) — aperitivo, then home

Drift back for a spritz or a glass of Lambrusco in Piazza Grande or one of the smaller squares — via Gallucci is the wine-bar street — then it is five minutes to the station. Just check the departure before you order the second glass.

Adding the Ferrari museums: the honest timing

There are two Ferrari museums, about 21 km apart, and they are not two versions of the same thing.

1. The Museo Enzo Ferrari in Modena — the man, and the road cars. Seven minutes from the station.
2. The Museo Ferrari in Maranello, next to the factory — the racing: the Hall of Victories, championship single-seaters, trophies, helmets, the F1 simulator.

The combined Musei Ferrari Pass covers both, on condition you visit them within 48 hours of each other — which is exactly the constraint that makes this awkward from a Bologna base.

The discount nobody claims

Before anything else: keep your train ticket. Ferrari runs a fare-based discount on its own ticket page. Show a used one-way Emilia-Romagna regional ticket from the current year at the desk and one museum costs €20 instead of €27 or €32, both cost €32 instead of €38 or €42. Coming from Bologna you are holding exactly that ticket.

Ticket	Oct–Apr	May–Sep
One museum, adult	€27	€32
Both museums (Musei Ferrari Pass)	€38	€42
One museum, with a regional train ticket	€20	€20
Both museums, with a regional train ticket	€32	€32
Under 19 with a paying relative, one museum	€9	€12
Fiorano panoramic tour, adult	€25	€25

In high season that is €12 a head saved, and most people bin the ticket on the platform. Buying online adds a booking fee (€0.40 plus VAT up to €30, €0.60 from €30 to €50) which you avoid at the desk, at the cost of a guaranteed slot.

Getting to Maranello without a car

This is the point at which most English-language guides quietly assume you have hired a car.

The public bus works. SETA line 800 leaves Modena Autostazione — the bus station, not the train station — and the stop you want is Maranello Ferrari Nord, not the terminal at the end of the line. It takes 27 to 31 minutes and costs €3.30 bought in advance or by tapping a contactless card on board, €4.00 from the driver, valid 1 hour 45 minutes. One trap: the €2.00 Modena urban ticket does not cover Maranello.

The timetable is the real constraint, and it collapses on Sundays. On Sundays and public holidays there are six buses out and five back: out of Modena at 07:30, 10:00, 12:05, 15:10, 17:30 and 20:00; back from Maranello Ferrari Nord at 08:22, 09:52, 14:32, 17:22 and 20:07. Take the 10:00 out, arrive at 10:27, and your options are a four-hour visit ending on the 14:32 or a seven-hour one ending on the 17:22. Nothing in between. On weekdays the hole is in the morning: no bus at all between 08:45 and 10:55.

The private shuttle is the alternative — and one runs straight from Bologna. Vivara Viaggi times its service to museum hours: Modena station, bay 4, at 10:40 and 15:20, calling at the Museo Enzo Ferrari five minutes later, reaching Maranello at 11:15 and 16:00, returning at 14:45 and 18:00. Listed at €22 adult, €20 child, booking online only — and the form asks for your museum ticket order number, so buy that first. There is also a direct run from Bologna: 09:00 from bay 25 at Bologna Autostazione, arriving around 10:15, returning to Modena station with the train back to Bologna at your own expense. If Ferrari is the whole point of your trip, that 09:00 departure is the cleanest way to do it.

What the Fiorano tour actually is

This is the most misunderstood purchase in Maranello and it is behind a lot of disappointed reviews. The panoramic factory and track tour costs €25 and is a 45-minute guided minibus run along viale Enzo Ferrari inside the plant and around the Fiorano test circuit. Ferrari's own wording is that you remain on board the vehicle throughout. You do not drive, you do not sit in a Ferrari, there are no timed laps. Ferrari sells no walk-through factory tour to the public at all — if watching cars being built is the point, Lamborghini and Pagani are the ones that take you onto the production lines.

The verdict from Bologna

Add it up: train, the walk to the bus station, half an hour out, two to three and a half hours in the factory museum — the allowance the shuttle operators themselves use — the ride back, the train home. Most of your day is gone, and you have not seen Piazza Grande. Worth saying too: Maranello is a working industrial town, not a destination. The bus at least makes it easy to split up, one of you out there for four hours while the other stays in Modena.

So pick a strategy rather than trying to have both: day-trip the cars only (the 09:00 shuttle from Bologna, or train plus SETA 800, both museums, train back, skip the centre), or day-trip the city only, with the Enzo Ferrari Museum as your single car stop. Every museum in the region with current prices and hours, plus what a supercar test drive really costs, is in our Motor Valley guide; the two headline names are in the Ferrari and Lamborghini museums guide.

What to do in Modena if it rains

It rains here. Po valley winters are cold and damp, autumn brings heavy days, and a summer thunderstorm can flatten an afternoon. You book a day trip on a train, not on a forecast, so it is worth knowing the wet version in advance. The centre is dense enough that you are never far from a door — but Modena has nothing like Bologna's porticoes to walk under, so bring an umbrella rather than planning to dodge showers.

Where	Hours	Price	Notes
Duomo	working church; closes during Mass	free	Indoors, and the carvings are the point
Galleria Estense	Tue–Sat 8:30–19:15, Sun 10:00–18:00, closed Mon	€8	Free on the first Sunday of the month
Mercato Albinelli	stalls Mon–Sat 7:00–15:00	free	A covered hall; restaurants inside 12:00–15:00 and 18:30–23:00 daily
Musei del Duomo	own ticket and hours; closed Mon	ticketed	The original Metopes and the cathedral treasury
Museo Enzo Ferrari	seasonal, see above	€20 with a regional ticket	Entirely indoors, seven minutes from the station
Acetaia Comunale	Fri and weekends, guided slots	€5	Town hall attic on Piazza Grande. Booking required
Collezione Panini	daily 9:30–13:00 and 14:30–18:00	€15	A century of Maserati — but bus 7 or 9, then 25 minutes on foot

The route we would actually walk: straight into the Duomo, free and indoors and worth the twenty minutes you would otherwise spend sheltering; then the Musei del Duomo for the original Metopes, taken down off the building and now at eye level; across to the Albinelli for an early lunch under its roof; the afternoon in the Galleria Estense, which absorbs two hours without effort. Aperitivo in a bar rather than a piazza, and the train home.

One trap: Monday, which closes the Galleria Estense, the Museo Civico and the Musei del Duomo at a stroke. A wet Monday is the one combination that genuinely ruins a Modena day trip — stay in Bologna, or make the Enzo Ferrari Museum your whole afternoon, since it opens seven days a week.

And what you lose. The Ghirlandina climb: narrow stairs to an open top, opening days already seasonal, and in bad weather not the visit you came for. Piazza Grande in the rain is a square you cross rather than one you sit in. If the tower and the piazza are your reason for coming and the forecast is bad, swap the day — the trains run daily and the ticket is €5.

Practical tips for your day trip

• Don't over-plan the middle of the day; do check both ends. With around 25 regional departures you can improvise from mid-morning to early evening. The first train and the last train are the two to look up.
• Keep the used ticket in your pocket. It is worth €7 to €12 off the door price at either Ferrari museum.
• Best time to come: mid-April to mid-June and September to early October. Summers here are hot and muggy, winters cold and damp.
• Watch the calendar. Late May brings the Motor Valley Fest — and one honest correction, since the opposite circulates as fact: the Ferrari museums are not free during the festival, they run a reduced evening rate. Acetaie Aperte, when producers across the province open their cellars on the same day, falls on Sunday 27 September 2026, with related events from Friday 25. And for a week in September the philosophy festival turns the squares into lecture halls, free and packed.
• September is the value month for engines. Both Ferrari museums run free one-hour guided tours in Italian and English on 19, 20, 26 and 27 September 2026, included with a normal ticket, at 11:00 in Maranello and 15:00 in Modena.
• Wear comfortable shoes. The centre is cobbled and entirely flat — this is the Po valley, there is not a hill in the city.

Day trip or overnight stay? An honest comparison

A day trip works for the highlights: the UNESCO centre, one good lunch, one afternoon activity. But there is a real case for staying the night, and it is not the case you would expect. It is not about seeing more things. It is about dinner.

The dinner problem, stated plainly. Modena eats at lunch: Aldina is lunch only and takes no bookings, Hosteria Giusti is lunch only from four tables, Ermes does dinner only Thursday to Saturday. Meanwhile dinner across the city does not start until 19:30 or 20:00 and runs to ten or half past. Set that against a timetable that thins out in the late evening and the arithmetic is uncomfortable: a day-tripper can have the great Modenese lunch, or a rushed Modenese dinner, but not a relaxed one. Sunday evening is hardest of all — many trattorie close, others do lunch only, and turning up at 8pm on a Sunday is how people eat badly in a place famous for eating well.

Stay over if the Ferrari museums are the priority (the 48-hour pass and every bus to Maranello leave from Modena), if you want dinner without watching a clock, if you are travelling with children and two transfers with luggage sound worse than waking up here, or if you want a countryside acetaia too — a relaxed morning across a night, impossible in a day-trip window.

Day-trip instead if you have two or three nights in the region and want a base with nightlife, since Bologna wins on evening life and onward high-speed connections; if the cathedral and a lunch is genuinely all you want; or if you are here on a Monday, when the galleries are shut and a night buys you less.

	Day trip from Bologna	Night in Modena
Time in the city	Six or seven hours	Afternoon, evening, night and the next morning
The great lunch	Yes, if you leave Bologna by 10:30	Yes, without hurrying
A relaxed dinner	No — the last trains thin out	Yes
Both Ferrari museums	Tight, and worse on a Sunday	Comfortable, on the 48-hour pass
A countryside acetaia	Only with a car and a tight schedule	Easy, as a morning
Piazza Grande at 8am	Never — you arrive after everyone else	The best hour of the trip
Cost	A €10 return ticket	A room, cheaper here than in Bologna

The morning is the part day-trippers never get. Before the Bologna trains arrive the square is empty, the market is opening and the light comes in low across the pale stone. That hour is why people who stay come back.

Other day trips near Modena

Modena works as a base, but the thing that decides these trips is not distance. Almost everything around here is shut on Monday, and on Sunday the buses and the Sassuolo branch line drop to a skeleton service — three trains a day instead of twenty-six, exactly when the museums are finally open. The short list: Maranello (SETA 800, 27–31 min, €3.30), Parma (32–35 min by train, ~€6, the Pilotta complex on one €18 ticket, closed Mondays), Sant'Agata and San Cesario for Lamborghini and Pagani, both of which — unlike Ferrari — take you onto the production lines, and the Collezione Maserati Umberto Panini, €15, daily 09:30–13:00 and 14:30–18:00. Fares, journey times and the return timetables are in day trips from Modena.

Where to stay for a second day

If the day leaves you wanting more, the easiest way to take in Modena, the Motor Valley and the food is to stay here. We host four apartments in the old town, each a short walk from the UNESCO sights, the market and the best tables.

• Ghirlandina View — Penthouse with Terrace — 145 m² on the 7th floor with a lift, a 30 m² terrace, a direct view of the Duomo and the Ghirlandina, sleeps six. On the avenues, outside the restricted zone: park under the building and walk in.
• Designer Penthouse on the Square — on Piazza Mazzini, four bedrooms, sleeps eight. The one for families and groups.
• Luxury Apartment Next to the Francescana — two suites, sleeps four, 100 m from Osteria Francescana.
• Modena Prestige — the Gateway to the Centre — ground floor on the avenues, public parking out front and an EV charger nearby, no permit needed. The practical choice if you are driving on to Maranello.

On the car, so there are no surprises. Two of the apartments are on the avenues, outside the limited traffic zone: drive up, park under the gate, done. For the two inside the historic centre — Piazza Mazzini and via De' Correggi — we arrange the ZTL permit at €10 a day, which also makes parking inside the zone free for the duration. Send us your plate when you book.

You book directly with us, with no platform commission. Before you arrive we send a list of what is actually open on your dates — in August and around Christmas, that is half the problem. We do not run transfers and we take nothing on the bookings we make for you: we book on your behalf, which is a different and more useful thing. Tickets, where they exist, are on our experiences page. Live availability is on our apartments in Modena page; the wider options are in where to stay in Modena.

Read next

Use this page to get here from Bologna and Modena in one day to plan the hours once you arrive. Before travelling: getting to Modena for airports and late connections, the Modena ZTL if you are driving, is Modena worth visiting if you are still deciding, and where to eat in Modena — in a lunch-only city, the one to read first. Then what to see, the Duomo and the Ghirlandina, the flavours of Modena and balsamic vinegar tours. Staying longer: the Motor Valley, the day trips, the philosophy festival in September and hidden Modena.

Frequently asked questions

How do you get from Bologna to Modena? By regional train from Bologna Centrale. It is about 40 km, the journey takes 18 to 30 minutes depending on the service, there are roughly 25 departures a day, and a single costs from about €5 with no booking. Modena station is a flat ten-minute walk from Piazza Grande. By car it is around 35 minutes on the A1, but the historic centre is a camera-enforced limited traffic zone, so park outside it.

Which train should I catch from Bologna to be in Modena for lunch? Anything leaving Bologna Centrale between about 9:30 and 10:30. That puts you in the centre by 11, which is enough for the market and the cathedral before the kitchens open at 12:30. It matters more here than in most cities: several of Modena's best trattorie serve lunch only, and Trattoria Aldina takes no bookings at all, so you want to be at the door by 12:15.

What time is the last train from Modena back to Bologna? Late evening — but we will not print a time that changes with every timetable revision, so check your date in the Trenitalia app before you sit down. The practical rule is that the last useful departures are well before midnight, and if you want a proper evening meal in Modena you are better off staying the night than eating with one eye on the clock.

Do I need to book Bologna-Modena train tickets in advance? No. Regional fares on this route are fixed, they do not rise as the date approaches, and there is no seat reservation to make. Buy on the day from a station machine, a tobacconist or the Trenitalia app. Digital regional tickets have validated themselves automatically since 2024; a paper ticket may still need stamping before you board, so ask at the counter.

Can you visit the Ferrari Museum as a day trip from Bologna? The Museo Enzo Ferrari in Modena, easily — it is seven minutes on foot from Modena station. Maranello is the harder one: SETA bus 800 from Modena Autostazione takes 27 to 31 minutes and costs €3.30, but on Sundays and public holidays there are only six buses out and five back. Both museums plus the old town in one day from Bologna is possible and rushed.

Is there a discount on the Ferrari museums if I arrive by train? Yes, and almost nobody claims it. Show a used one-way Emilia-Romagna regional ticket from the current year at the desk and one museum costs €20 instead of €27 or €32, while both cost €32 instead of €38 or €42. Coming over from Bologna you already hold exactly that ticket, so keep it in your pocket instead of dropping it on the platform.

What can you do in Modena if it rains? More than you would think, because the centre is dense. The Galleria Estense opens Tuesday to Saturday 8:30-19:15 and Sunday 10:00-18:00 for €8; the Albinelli market is a covered hall, Monday to Saturday 7:00-15:00; the cathedral is free and indoors; and the Acetaia Comunale in the town hall attic is a €5 guided visit on Piazza Grande. Only the tower climb really depends on the weather.

Is it better to day-trip from Bologna or stay a night in Modena? Day-trip if you want the cathedral, one good lunch and one afternoon activity — that fits comfortably. Stay the night if the Ferrari museums matter, if you want the piazza in the evening once the day-trippers have gone, or if you are travelling with children and would rather not spend the day watching connections. The morning, before the Bologna trains arrive, is the best hour in the city.