The hook
A Renaissance city built to a plan, with a genuine moated castle in the middle of it, nine kilometres of intact walls you can cycle on top of, and, for a city this handsome in this country, remarkably few visitors.
01Why it's worth it
Ferrara was the Este family's capital, and they spent three centuries making it one of the first properly planned cities in Europe, the Addizione Erculea of 1492 laid out wide straight streets and a new quarter to a design, which is why UNESCO lists it as a model of Renaissance urban planning. At its heart the Castello Estense still sits in its water-filled moat with drawbridges and towers, unusually intact and visitable down to the dungeons. Around it: a rose-and-white marble cathedral, a medieval quarter of arcaded lanes (Via delle Volte, once the merchants' back way), and one of Italy's most significant Jewish quarters, with a museum telling that long and finally terrible history. The city is flat and bicycle-mad, everyone rides, including up onto the ramparts. Emilia-Romagna's food applies here with local variations: cappellacci di zucca, salama da sugo, pumpkin and spice rather than Bologna's ragù.
02How to experience it
Hire a bike on arrival, that's how the city works, and ride the wall circuit, then the castle, cathedral, and the Jewish quarter and museum. Eat cappellacci di zucca somewhere unfashionable. It's twenty-five minutes by train from Bologna, so it works as a day trip, but an evening here after the day-trippers leave is the better version.
From the locals
It's the name Italy regulars reach for when the famous cities come up: "my favourite hidden gem in Italy… Ferrara has it all," one wrote, and in another thread on the country's most underrated places, a local adds Ferrara and Mantua to the standard list as "veeery underrated," lamenting travellers who do only "VENICE–FLORENCE–ROME."