Bologna has 62 kilometres of porticoes and since 2021 they are a UNESCO World Heritage site, but if you are to walk only one, walk this. It sets off from the Meloncello, climbs the colle della Guardia and arrives at a sanctuary: the arches are traditionally 666, the complete route measures about 3,600 metres, the steps are 489 and the ascent is around three hundred metres, all under cover.
It is the longest portico in the world, and it is not a record built to be a record: it is a work of devotional engineering, paid for arch by arch by the citizens of Bologna between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which served to carry an icon into the city under the rain without wetting it.
And today it has one more function nobody had foreseen. Since the two towers closed for the Garisenda building site, which runs until 2028, the sanctuary’s dome is the point from which you look at Bologna from above. Entry is free, and the practical information is at the end.
Why a portico three and a half kilometres long exists
The origin is an icon and a logistical problem.
The sanctuary at the top of the hill holds a Byzantine panel of the Madonna and Child, which tradition attributes to Saint Luke the Evangelist and which the sources record on the hill from the twelfth century. Since 1433 that icon has come down into the city once a year, in procession, and stays on show in San Petronio for a week: the procession was born to invoke the end of rains that were destroying the harvests, and it has never been interrupted since.
The problem was that the procession took place in spring, on an uphill country road, with a thirteenth-century painted panel in hand. In 1674 the city began building a continuous portico to cover the whole route, from porta Saragozza to the summit. The building site continued through the eighteenth century.
The financing is the part that says most about Bologna: each arch was paid for by a family, a guild, a confraternity or a private citizen, and many arches still carry the coat of arms or the inscription of whoever paid. It was not the work of a prince, it was a collection that lasted more than a century.
The numbers, and the arches traditionally called 666
The numbers of this portico circulate in different versions, and it is worth pinning them down.
The complete route from porta Saragozza to the sanctuary measures about 3,600 metres, and that is the figure the Comune di Bologna gives; from the Meloncello the climb is more than two kilometres. On the number of arches, however, the Comune itself is cautious: it writes that “some say has 666 arches along its route, but actually the number is slightly lower (it depends on how they are counted)”. The 489 steps and the roughly 300 metres of ascent are, on the other hand, stable figures. Along the route there are fifteen chapels, marking the Mysteries of the Rosary and serving as stations of the procession.
On the number 666 an esoteric literature has been built, as was predictable: the number of the Beast of the Apocalypse set on the road to a Marian sanctuary, read as the serpent crushed by the Virgin. It is a traditional reading and not a construction datum, and it falls precisely on the number: if the real count is slightly below 666, as the Comune says, the symbolism is left without its figure.
The Meloncello portico, where the climb begins
The point at which the level portico becomes the climbing one is a piece of architecture in its own right, and it is worth a pause before setting off.
The Arco del Meloncello was built in 1718 to a design by Carlo Francesco Dotti, the architect who would later rebuild the sanctuary at the top. It is a Baroque overpass that spans the road and links the two stretches of portico, with a curved set piece and a stair: it exists to solve a practical problem, crossing a carriage road without breaking the cover, and Dotti solves it with the grammar of theatrical Baroque.
From there on you climb, and the climb is even: no sharp stretches, low steps, and always shade. An hour at an easy pace puts you at the top.
The sanctuary, and the panel that comes down into the city
The sanctuary you reach is eighteenth-century, rebuilt between 1723 and 1757 by the same Carlo Francesco Dotti over an earlier church, and it has an elliptical plan with a dome visible from the plain.
Inside, the high altar holds the icon of the Madonna di San Luca, the Byzantine panel around which all of this was built. It is small, far smaller than the stage set would lead you to expect, and this gap between container and contained is what strikes you most on arrival: three and a half kilometres of portico, a dome, a facade, for a panel you can hold in two hands.
Worth looking at, besides the icon: the Baroque decoration of the ellipse, and in the sacristy the works by Guido Reni and Guercino, who are the two big names of Bolognese seventeenth-century painting.
The dome, and the view that replaces the towers
The sanctuary allows you to climb to the dome, and this is the practical reason this article exists at this moment.
From up there you see the whole of Bologna from above: the red patch of the historic centre, the two towers rising out of the roofs, the plain stretching north until it is lost, and behind you the first rises of the Apennines. On days of clean air, which is to say almost never in summer and often in winter, the view goes a very long way.
Until 2023, anyone wanting this view climbed the Torre degli Asinelli. Today you cannot: the Garisenda has been closed since 2023 and the Asinelli is closed for the building site around it, with work declared until 2028. The dome of San Luca and the Torre dell’Orologio of Palazzo d’Accursio are the two alternatives left, and this is the finer of the two.
Attention: the dome keeps its own hours, tighter than the basilica’s, and on Sunday it opens later. You will find them at the end.
How to tackle the climb
Three ways, in the order I would recommend them.
On foot, the whole portico. It is the right way, and it is easier than it sounds: the steps are low and spread out, the shade is continuous and you can stop at any point. A good hour going up, forty minutes coming down. It works with children, because the cover removes the problem of the sun.
By bus to the Meloncello, then on foot. It cuts out the level stretch inside the city, which is the least interesting, and leaves the climb intact. It is the choice I would make with limited time.
By shuttle to the top. There is a service that takes those who cannot or would rather not walk to the sanctuary. It should be said that this way you lose the portico, which is the monument.
On when: early morning is the best moment, for the light over the plain and because in summer three hundred metres of ascent in the early afternoon is an avoidable effort even in the shade.
Practical information
Figures checked on 1 September 2026 by cross-checking the sanctuary’s information with the Comune di Bologna’s porticoes portal. The sanctuary’s hours depend on celebrations and change between summer and winter: check them again before setting off, and the dome’s in particular.
Tickets. Entry to the portico and the sanctuary is free. The climb to the dome is included.
Hours. The basilica is open every day from 7.00 to 12.30 and from 14.30 to 18.00, closing at 19.00 in the summer period. The dome is visitable Monday to Saturday from 10.30 to 13.30 and from 14.30 to 18.30, and on Sunday from 12.00 to 13.30 and from 14.30 to 18.30.
The portico has no hours: it is a covered public street and can be walked at any time. At night it is only partly lit.
Getting there. The portico begins in the centre, at porta Saragozza, and the climbing stretch starts at the Meloncello, reachable by city bus from the centre in about fifteen minutes. From there the climb is entirely pedestrian and covered. Those arriving by car will find parking at the top, but the road is narrow and crowded at weekends.
How long. An hour and a quarter to climb at an easy pace, forty minutes to come down, half an hour for the sanctuary and the dome. In total it is half a day, and it is worth counting it as such rather than squeezing it between two museums.
What to bring. Water, because there are no fountains along the whole route, and walking shoes. Nothing else: this is not a mountain path, it is a very long covered stair.
A flaw, in fairness. The initial stretch, from the centre to the Meloncello, runs along busy roads and is not beautiful: the portico is there but the setting is urban and noisy. If you are short of time or patience, take the bus to the Meloncello without guilt, because the part that counts begins there.
If you are building a wider itinerary, San Luca is the second day in What to see in Bologna in 2 days, and the stops in the centre are the basilica of San Petronio, the Pinacoteca Nazionale, the Santo Stefano complex and the Lamentation by Niccolò dell’Arca.
Photo credits: portico of San Luca by Serenapaliria, arches of the portico and view from the colle della Guardia by Carlo Pelagalli and Puscas Vadim, sanctuary and interior by Syrio, vault of the portico and Arco del Meloncello by Piadinamia, climb of the portico by Ввласенко (CC BY-SA 4.0 and CC BY-SA 3.0). All from Wikimedia Commons.
