This was definitely the most chaotic and confusing station we've traveled in and out of. We were in…read moreBologna for a day - for a walking food tour, let's be so real - and took a regional train from Verona. And maybe it's unfair for me to compare this station to Verona, or Florence, or even Rome, but that's human nature, isn't it?
While it has a lot of modern-looking finishes and several places for one to sit, on the day we were there the station gave off an overall vibe of dinginess and over-crowdedness. That "at capacity" feeling was at its worst that evening, when every bench, chair, open floor space was occupied by a human, waiting to find out where they should go to catch their train out.
We were lucky to find an empty table at one of the cafes, after purchasing some drinks and snacks to tide us over for the evening. We weren't lucky enough to get seats with a view to the departures board, though, so we had to take turns walking over to the boards to see if our platform informaiton had been updated.
And friends, I'm so glad we left as soon as the platform information populated because whooo, was it ever a trek from where we were to where we needed to be! I hadn't realized until that moment exactly how big a station Bologna Centrale was.