Ferrara is a city built for walking and cycling, with flat streets, a ring of Renaissance walls nine kilometres long, and so many bicycles that it is called the city of bicycles. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, under the Este family, it was one of the great courts of Renaissance Italy, and the Estense castle, with its moat and drawbridges, still dominates the centre. The city's Renaissance planning, especially the Herculean Addition, a new quarter laid out in the late fifteenth century, led historians to call it the first modern city in Europe, and UNESCO has inscribed Ferrara and the Po Delta as a World Heritage Site.
The Mille Miglia, the legendary road race from Brescia to Rome and back, passed through Ferrara, and the historic version of the race, for classic cars, still crosses the city every year in May, with crowds lining the streets to watch. The Palazzo dei Diamanti, with its façade of diamond-shaped stones, hosts major art exhibitions, and the cathedral, with its Romanesque façade, stands opposite the castle. The poet Ludovico Ariosto lived here and wrote Orlando Furioso.
The riding around Ferrara is flat, across the Po plain, with long straight roads, canals and fields. It is relaxing rather than exciting, but the Po Delta, to the east, is a fascinating landscape of lagoons, marshes and pine forests, with flamingos, herons and fishing villages, and the roads along the river and the coast are scenic. The plain is hot and humid in summer and often foggy in winter. The city centre has a limited traffic zone, the ZTL, so park outside and walk or rent a bicycle.
Ferrara, a city of ninety thousand, has fuel, shops and restaurants. The local food is distinctive: cappellacci di zucca, pasta filled with pumpkin, salama da sugo, a cured pork sausage served with mashed potatoes, and the coppia ferrarese, a twisted bread with a protected designation. A ride or walk along the walls, with the trees above and the city on one side and the countryside on the other, is the best way to see Ferrara.