The Zona Universitaria stretches northeast from the Two Towers along Via Zamboni and into the streets around Piazza Verdi. This is where most of the university's older faculties cluster — the Palazzo Poggi, the Teatro Anatomico, the Pinacoteca — and where students set the rhythm of the day.
Daytime: bookshops, lecture-cafes, the porticoes of San Giacomo. By night: cheap pizza al taglio, the loudest bars in the city, political graffiti, and an open-air aperitivo crowd that fills Piazza Verdi until well after midnight. The neighbourhood is also the historic centre of Bolognese student politics and a good place to take the city's temperature.