Why go
Follow the idea of the Via Aemilia when traveling between Bologna, Modena, Reggio Emilia, Parma and Rimini. The road tied Roman colonies across the Po Plain to one another, so their present-day sequence is part of the story rather than a string of unrelated stops.
The full story
The Via Aemilia ran from Rimini to Piacenza and was completed in 187 BC under the consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. At Rimini it connected with the older Via Flaminia toward Rome. Its straight regional course helped Roman armies and settlers move through the fertile Po Plain after the conquest of Gallic territory. Bononia, the Roman predecessor of Bologna, formed part of the line alongside Mutina, Regium and Parma. This was more than a transport project: colonies and farms consolidated control of land taken from defeated peoples. The road eventually lent its name to Aemilia, the region it crossed. That history gives a different meaning to a trip along the corridor today. Bologna sits within a chain of cities shaped by the same Roman expansion, rather than at the end of a single road from Rome. For a city visit, use the article as orientation; for the full geographic story, compare more than one of the towns along the route.