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FrançaisFerrara’s ten main sights fit into a single day on foot, and they run from the moated Castello Estense in the middle of town to the Palazzo dei Diamanti at the top of Corso Ercole I d’Este. Ferrara sits roughly half an hour north of Bologna by train, so a day trip works without rushing: arrive mid-morning, walk a Renaissance centre that UNESCO lists in its entirety, and be back for dinner.
Smaller than Bologna and less known than Parma and Modena, Ferrara rarely makes a first-time list for the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and I think that is a mistake. It is flat, quiet, ringed by about 9 km (5.6 mi) of intact city walls, and full of buildings the Este dukes paid for. One thing has changed since most guides to the city were written, and it changes what you see: Ferrara Cathedral was shut for six years after earthquake damage and reopened only in 2024, with its front still behind scaffolding.
How to see Ferrara in one day
One day in Ferrara covers ten sights if you start at the castle and work outwards, because everything except the Certosa sits inside a 20-minute walk. The order below follows that walk: the castle and the cathedral square first, the quiet piazzas and the old ghetto next, then the long straight of Corso Ercole I d’Este north to the Palazzo dei Diamanti.
The 10 sights worth your time in Ferrara are listed below, in walking order.
- Castello Estense: the moated Este castle, with dungeons and a climbable tower.
- Ferrara Cathedral: the Cattedrale di San Giorgio, free to enter and part-way through a long restoration.
- Museo della Cattedrale: the cathedral’s own museum, holding the organ shutters by Cosmè Tura.
- Piazza del Municipio: the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale, reached through the arch opposite the cathedral.
- Piazza Sant’Anna: the pedestrianised square where the poet Torquato Tasso was locked up.
- The old Jewish ghetto: Via Mazzini and the lanes behind it, walled off from 1627.
- MEIS: the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah, built on the site of a former prison.
- Piazza Ariostea: the green oval that hosts the Palio di Ferrara each May.
- Palazzo dei Diamanti: the diamond-faceted palace holding the Pinacoteca Nazionale.
- San Cristoforo alla Certosa: the Carthusian church out by the monumental cemetery.
Ferrara rewards background more than most Italian cities, because so much of what you are looking at was commissioned by one family over 350 years. If you would rather have that explained than read it off a plaque, consider booking a private tour of the city centre with a guide who can point at the Este story as you walk through it.
1. Castello Estense
The Castello Estense is Ferrara’s single unmissable sight, and it is the one to book ahead. Building began in 1385, after a revolt in which the crowd tore a member of the ruling family apart, and the Este family turned what started as a fortress into their permanent home in the late 15th century. The moat is still full of water and the drawbridges still work, which is rarer than it sounds.
Inside, you get the ducal apartments, the frescoed Sala dei Giochi, the kitchens and the dungeons where political prisoners were held below the waterline. The Torre dei Leoni, the Lion’s Tower, is the part you climb for a view over the rooftops to the walls.
A full ticket costs €12.00 ($14, £10) and a reduced ticket €10.00 ($12, £8), with 11 to 17-year-olds paying €5.00 ($6, £4) and under-11s going free. Climbing the Lion’s Tower adds a €2.00 supplement, which is waived for under-11s and MyFE card holders. The castle opens 10am to 6pm and closes every Tuesday. The ticket desk shuts at 5.15pm, the last tower ticket is sold at 4.30pm, and the last climb starts at 5.15pm, so a late-afternoon arrival can cost you the tower. Booking online through the city’s museum booking site is recommended and compulsory for groups, which are capped at 25 people. If the south wing and the camerini happen to be closed, the full and reduced prices both drop by €2.00.
2. Ferrara Cathedral
Ferrara Cathedral is free to enter and only partly back in service, so go in with the right expectations. The Cattedrale di San Giorgio was consecrated in 1135 and takes its name from the city’s patron saint. It closed in 2018 once the damage from the 2012 earthquake became clear, and it reopened on 23 March 2024 after six years of structural work on its eight main pillars.
The restoration is not finished. The centre of the three-gabled front has stayed behind scaffolding, and a second phase funded with €7.5 million covers the façade, the bell tower and works inside, with the whole programme expected to run for years yet. Older guides that open by telling you to admire the façade were written before any of this happened, so plan to see the inside rather than the outside.
That inside is 18th-century. The original interior burned in the 1700s and was rebuilt in Baroque form around a nave with aisles either side. Along the southern flank, small shops are built into the body of the church itself, a medieval arrangement that has simply never been undone.
3. Museo della Cattedrale
The Museo della Cattedrale holds the pieces that came out of the cathedral, which makes it the sensible follow-on from the church. The collection is small and unusually good: the painted organ shutters by Cosmè Tura showing the Annunciation and Saint George and the dragon, Romanesque sculpture from the old façade, illuminated choir books and the Madonna della Melagrana by Jacopo della Quercia.
The building is worth the ticket on its own, since the museum occupies the former church of San Romano and opens onto an arcaded courtyard that most visitors have to themselves.
Admission costs €6.00 ($7, £5), with a €3.00 reduced rate. The museum opens 9.30am to 1pm and 3pm to 6pm and closes on Mondays, with the ticket desk shutting at 5.30pm.
4. Piazza del Municipio
Piazza del Municipio is the courtyard of Ferrara’s town hall, and you reach it through the arch directly opposite the cathedral. Two statues stand on either side of that arch, Niccolò III on horseback and Borso d’Este seated, both of them Este rulers and both of them 20th-century replacements for originals destroyed in the Napoleonic period.
The courtyard’s set piece is the Scalone d’Onore, the covered ceremonial staircase under a white marble canopy, built in 1481. The building behind it is the Palazzo Ducale, the Este family’s home before they moved into the castle.
Come back in the evening in summer and the square is usually in use for a concert or a public event. If nothing is on, the steps are a good place to sit with a gelato and watch people cut through.
5. Piazza Sant’Anna
Piazza Sant’Anna is the quietest square on this list, and its history is darker than its appearance suggests. The long building along its edge was the Ospedale di Sant’Anna, founded in 1445 on the site of an Augustinian monastery and the first hospital in the city.
A plaque on the wall marks the cell where the poet Torquato Tasso was held from 1579 to 1586, in the wing set aside for the insane. Tasso was almost certainly not mad. He had turned on the ducal court in public, and the hospital was a convenient place to put him.
The square was pedestrianised and its buildings cleaned in a recent renovation, which is why it now reads as a place to stop rather than somewhere to walk through.
6. The old Jewish ghetto
Ferrara’s old Jewish ghetto is the five streets around Via Mazzini, and the community there is the only one in Italy with an unbroken presence since the 15th century. From 1627 the Jewish population was walled in behind gates that were locked at night, and the arrangement lasted until the middle of the 19th century.
Via Mazzini, formerly Via Sabbioni, is the main thoroughfare. The gates are long gone and the houses have been renovated, but the street pattern, the narrow frontages and the raised doorways all survive.
The Palazzo delle Sinagoghe at Via Mazzini 95 holds the synagogues and the Jewish community’s museum. It has been closed to visitors since the 2012 earthquake, and a Region-backed restoration has been working towards a reopening, so check whether it is open before you build a visit around it. The building is worth finding either way, because the plaque and the doorway tell you where you are standing.
7. MEIS, the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah
MEIS covers 2,000 years of Jewish life in Italy rather than the Holocaust alone, which is what makes it different from most museums of its kind. The permanent displays run from the Roman period through the Renaissance, and the exhibition “1938. Humanity denied” deals with the racial laws.
There is a hard irony in the site. MEIS occupies the former Ferrara prison on Via Piangipane, the building where Jews were held during the Second World War. The prison stayed in use until 1992.
The museum opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm, and a full ticket costs €10.00 ($12, £8) plus a €1.00 booking fee. Groups have to book ahead.
8. Piazza Ariostea
Piazza Ariostea is Ferrara’s green oval, sunk below street level and ringed by an asphalt track, and it is where the Palio is run. A column at its centre carries a statue of the poet Ludovico Ariosto, who gives the square its name. On an ordinary day it is a place to sit in the sun with a coffee.
The Palio di Ferrara is the reason to time a visit around it. The city dates the race to 1279, which makes it the oldest palio in the world, and the whole of May fills with contrada events in the run-up. In 2026 the races ran on Saturday 30 May at 8pm, with 31 May and 1 June held in reserve for bad weather. Note the day: the Palio has moved to a Saturday evening, and older write-ups still tell you to turn up on the last Sunday in May.
Four races are run in one evening by the city’s eight contrade: a sprint for the boys, a sprint for the girls, a donkey race and the horse race. Restaurants put on Palio menus and a good part of the city turns out in costume.
9. Palazzo dei Diamanti
The Palazzo dei Diamanti is faced with roughly 8,500 marble blocks cut into pyramids, which is where the name comes from. Biagio Rossetti designed it in the 1490s as the corner piece of the Addizione Erculea, the planned extension that doubled the size of Ferrara and is the reason the northern half of the city is laid out on straight lines.
The piano nobile holds the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Ferrara, and it is a stronger collection than the building’s reputation suggests: Cosmè Tura, Ercole de’ Roberti, Garofalo and Bastianino from the Ferrara school, alongside Gentile da Fabriano, Mantegna and Carpaccio. The Costabili Polyptych, painted by Garofalo with Dosso Dossi, is the piece people come back to. The gallery opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm, with last admission half an hour before closing, and it closes on Mondays.
The ground floor is Ferrara’s main temporary exhibition space and works on its own calendar and its own ticket. It runs one large show at a time, most recently “From Monet to Van Gogh to Kandinsky”, open daily from 19 September 2026 to 10 January 2027, so check what is on before you decide how long to allow.
10. San Cristoforo alla Certosa
San Cristoforo alla Certosa sits outside the old core next to the monumental cemetery, about 15 minutes’ walk from the castle. Borso d’Este founded the Carthusian monastery here in 1452, and the present church went up from 1498 for Ercole I, attributed to Biagio Rossetti. It is a Latin cross with a single nave and six side chapels, and the scale of it tells you how rich the Carthusian order in Ferrara was.
The church was declared unsafe after the 2012 earthquake and reopened at the end of 2019 following post-seismic restoration, and works have continued since. It opens every day, 8.45am to 5.15pm in summer time and 8.45am to 4.45pm in winter, and visits stop during the 10am Mass and during funerals. The side altars, the presbytery and the sacristy are currently closed off, so you see the nave and the transept rather than the full building.
Getting around Ferrara by bike
Ferrara is a cycling city, and hiring a bike for the day is the single change that makes the Certosa and the city walls easy. The centre is flat, the walls carry a continuous cycle path along the top, and locals of every age ride.
Hire shops sit around the centre rather than at the station, whatever older guides say. Ceragioli in Piazza Travaglio charges €2.00 an hour, €5.00 for half a day and €8.00 for a full day; Orange27, based at two hotels in the centre, charges €12.00 a day for a city bike and €25.00 for an e-bike; and Hotel Annunziata on Piazza Repubblica hires out 12 city bikes at €15.00 a day from 8am to 8pm. The tourist board keeps the full list with current prices.
How to get to Ferrara from Bologna
The train from Bologna is the way to reach Ferrara, and the journey takes about half an hour on a direct regional service. Trains run frequently enough that you can decide on the morning, and Ferrara’s station is a 15-minute walk or a short bus ride from the castle.
Ferrara works best as one leg of a longer stay in the regional capital rather than as a base in itself, so it sits naturally alongside the other day trips from Bologna that use the same rail line. Buy the ticket before you get to the platform, because the machines at Bologna Centrale are unreliable and the queues at the counter are long. Compare times and fares on Omio, which shows every operator on the route rather than one.
If you are driving in Italy, note that Ferrara’s historic centre is a restricted traffic zone. Park outside it and walk in.
Ferrara FAQ
Is Ferrara worth visiting?
Ferrara is worth visiting for a compact Renaissance centre that UNESCO lists in its entirety, a moated castle you can go inside, and far smaller crowds than Bologna or Venice. One day covers the main sights comfortably. It suits travellers who like walking and looking at buildings more than those who want a long list of attractions.
How long do you need in Ferrara?
One full day is enough for Ferrara’s ten main sights on foot. Two days lets you add the city walls by bike, the Palazzina Marfisa d’Este and Palazzo Schifanoia, and a slower look at the Pinacoteca Nazionale.
Is Ferrara a good day trip from Bologna?
Ferrara is one of the easiest day trips from Bologna, at roughly 30 minutes each way on a direct train. Leave Bologna mid-morning, allow about six hours in the city, and you are back for dinner.
What is Ferrara famous for?
Ferrara is famous for the Este dukes, the Renaissance city plan they commissioned, and the Palio, which the city dates to 1279 and claims as the oldest in the world. It is also known for its cycling culture and for local dishes including eel from the nearby Po Delta and the twisted coppia ferrarese bread.
When is the best time to visit Ferrara?
April, May, September and October are the best months to visit Ferrara, when the weather suits walking and cycling and the city is not at its busiest. Late May adds the Palio. July and August are hot and humid on the Po plain, and several smaller museums cut their hours then.
WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips
The 4 tips below come from re-checking Ferrara’s opening days, prices and restoration work for 2026, and each one changes what you can actually see on the day.
- Do not plan a Tuesday in Ferrara. The Castello Estense closes every Tuesday, and the Pinacoteca Nazionale and MEIS both close on Mondays, so Monday and Tuesday between them shut the three sights most people come for. Wednesday to Sunday keeps everything open.
- Buy the castle ticket before 4.30pm if you want the tower. The last Torre dei Leoni ticket is sold at 4.30pm and the last climb starts at 5.15pm, even though the castle stays open until 6pm. The tower is the only place you get the rooftop view.
- Expect scaffolding on the cathedral, not a façade. The Cattedrale di San Giorgio reopened in March 2024 after six years shut, and the middle of its front has stayed behind scaffolding while the next phase of restoration runs. Entry is free, and the interior is what there is to see.
- Check the Palazzo delle Sinagoghe before you go looking for it. The synagogues and the Jewish museum at Via Mazzini 95 have been closed to visitors since the 2012 earthquake, with a restoration working towards a reopening. MEIS on Via Piangipane is open and covers the same history.
About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the notes on Ferrara come from her trips through Emilia-Romagna using Bologna as a base. The team covers Italy for independent travellers, including the tours, museums and train connections worth booking in cities like Ferrara, and updates this page when prices, opening days and restoration work change.
