Bologna Welcome Card: Is It Worth It? Easy vs Plus (2026)

The Bologna Welcome Card Easy costs €35 and the Plus costs €55. Easy pays for itself once your regular tickets add up to €35. With the €18 Discover Bologna tour that can take three activities, and with museum tickets at €6 to €12 it usually takes four or five. Plus makes sense only when the extras you would pay for anyway add up to more than the €20 upgrade. If you mostly want a few civic museums, the €5 Card Cultura Light may be the better pass. For a first visit built around Piazza Maggiore, the porticoes and good meals, single tickets cost less than either card.

The comparison below uses regular adult prices from Bologna Welcome and the venues. Reduced tickets, other passes and your own plans can change the result.

What the Two Cards Include

The card pages for Easy and Plus list these services. Both cards stay valid for up to 15 days from the first service you use, and each service can be used once. The museums are listed with their permanent collections, so do not assume that a temporary exhibition is included. The cards also carry discounts, listed further down.

Bologna Welcome’s terms of purchase are written mainly for package tours and website purchases. We found no refund rule specific to the card in them, so ask Bologna Welcome before you buy if that matters to you.

What Each Included Sight Costs on Its Own

The prices come from the Bologna Welcome pages for the Clock Tower, Palazzo Pepoli, Discover Bologna, the bike rental, the City Red Bus and the San Luca Express, from the Basilica of San Petronio’s visitor page for the chapels, and from the museum listings. Reduced tickets for students, over-65s and young visitors change the arithmetic, so compare your own category.

Bologna Welcome lists the Pinacoteca as included in both cards, and the museum’s own ticket page says Bologna Welcome Card holders get in free. Older listings quoted a reduced ticket, so you may still see one online. The third plan below counts the full €12 as the price you save. Our guide to the museums in Bologna has opening hours and ticket prices for each one.

When the Card Pays Off

These examples compare regular adult single tickets with the card. They do not include other passes.

The second plan shows how little room there is: Easy saves €3 with three activities, and the €18 tour does the work. The third plan is where the card starts to matter. It saves €23.

Plus costs €20 more than Easy. The upgrade pays when the Plus-only extras you would really buy add up to more than €20. The City Red Bus (€16) and the chapels (€5) make €21, and the two rides together make €31. The San Luca Express and the chapels make exactly €20, which is break-even. The Red Bus or the San Luca Express on its own does not cover the upgrade.

The examples assume you would pay for every listed item anyway. Adding a sight only to justify a card is not a saving, and a closing day or a full booking slot can remove part of the difference.

A Cheaper Alternative: Card Cultura Light

If museums are the main reason to buy a card, compare the Card Cultura Light. It costs €5, is valid for 12 months and gives three free entries to the civic museums of your choice: the Archaeological, Medieval, MAMbo, Morandi, Music, Industrial Heritage and Risorgimento museums and the Municipal Art Collections. It also gives one Palazzo Pepoli ticket at €7 instead of €10 and a discounted Archiginnasio visit. You can buy it online or at the Bologna Welcome information point in Piazza Maggiore, and it is sold only in digital form.

Three museums at about €6 each cost about €18 on their own, and the Light card covers them for €5. Its listing does not include the Clock Tower climb, the Discover Bologna tour or the Pinacoteca, the items that make Easy pay off.

The full Card Cultura costs €25 for 12 months from activation, with free and reduced admissions across a wider network. It is built for repeat visits over a year more than for a short trip.

Extra Discounts With the Bologna Welcome Card

Bologna Welcome’s discount list, in Italian, includes these offers:

• Archiginnasio and Anatomical Theatre: €7 instead of €12 for the guided visit, or €8 instead of €10 with an audio guide.
• Palazzo d’Accursio guided visit: €12 instead of €15.
• City e-bike rental for four hours: €20 instead of €40.

These are reductions, not free entries, and we left them out of the examples above. The list does not say whether each offer applies to Easy, Plus or both, so check before you count on one.

What You Do Not Need a Card For

Much of what first-time visitors come for costs nothing. The Basilica of San Petronio is free to enter, and the separate three-chapel route costs €5. Piazza Maggiore, the porticoes and the walk up to San Luca are free as well, as our porticoes guide explains. Our budget guide lists more free things to do, and our museums guide compares the museums one by one.

How to Buy and Use the Card

You buy Easy or Plus online on the Bologna Welcome card pages and receive the card by email. Buying the card does not book anything. For the Clock Tower, the Discover Bologna tour and the bike rental you reserve a slot with the instructions you receive afterwards. The Clock Tower runs three admissions an hour, so check that a slot fits your day. Discover Bologna meets at the Bologna Welcome information point at Piazza Maggiore 1/e and takes two hours; its languages and times change by season. For the bike you need an identity document and a signed rental contract at pickup.

Who Should Buy Which Card

• Buy Easy if your plan includes the Clock Tower, Palazzo Pepoli and Discover Bologna (€38 in single tickets), or four or five paid museum entries.
• Buy Plus if, on top of the Easy sights, you would pay for Plus-only extras worth more than €20, such as the City Red Bus and the chapels (€21) or both rides (€31).
• Choose Card Cultura Light if you mainly want up to three of the civic museums.
• Skip the cards if you plan one or two paid sights. Single tickets cost less, and you keep the freedom to change plans.
• Check closing days before you book: Bologna Welcome notes that some museums close on Mondays and others on Tuesdays.

If you skip the card and want a guided visit, a walking tour is the closest substitute for the included Discover Bologna tour. The middle option has more than 4,000 reviews, and the third adds the tower view and the Archiginnasio, which neither card includes:

Frequently Asked Questions

Plan Your Trip to Bologna

Before you book, read these next:

• Best Museums in Bologna: compare the museums the cards cover
• Bologna on a Budget: free things to do and cheap eats
• Bologna Trip Cost: what a trip costs, day by day
• 2 Days in Bologna: a first-time route to check the card against
• Where to Stay in Bologna: the full comparison of areas and hotels
• Asinelli Tower Guide: the Clock Tower and other views while the tower is closed

More city guides are collected in Things to Do in Bologna.