Bologna Lodging Location - Near airport or downtown (flight in AM)

The airport is so near to downtown that I would stay in the city itself. There are so many great restaurants!

The airport is just a 20 minute cab ride from Bologna, or a little longer on the Airport bus.
Stay in town!

You have basically two equally sensible choices. Which one to opt for, is up to you.

OPTION 1
Check in at an airport hotel (below I linked the one I usually stay at, they have free shuttle to the terminal operating mornings and evenings).
https://www.flyonhotel.it/en/index

After checking in and getting settled, return the car at Bologna airport car rental return (located in the parking structure), then you can go directly from the terminal to the city center using the people mover (goes to the central station) or a taxi cab.

Once you are done visiting the city (including a nice lunch at one of the many great restaurants), return to the hotel (via taxi) for the evening and early sleep (the hotel has a decent restaurant).

In the morning take the free hotel shuttle to the terminal (3 min drive). Book the seat at the reception the evening before.

OPTION 2
Return the car at a city location (the location varies depending on the rental company you use, but they are all near the Bologna Centrale train station). Once returned, take a taxi from the car rental office to the hotel of your choice downtown.

Check in and do your city visit for the day.

In the morning ask the hotel to get you a taxi to the airport. The taxi ride at that time in the morning is about 20 min.

Thank you guys SO much! This could be a controversial question cause everyone has different risk levels in terms of arriving to airports (we tend to be on the risky side and get their with little time to spare!). How is Bologna’s airport for departures? Is it a 2 hour before type of place or a bit smaller…..with a 7:30 flight, that makes a big difference if we want to tack on the extra 20 min to get to the airport :) :)

If your flight out is part of your international flight home, then I wouldn't risk it by getting to the airport late. If you miss your flight out of Bologna, you very well could miss your connection to your flight back to US, and that's a big headache. We're staying 3 nights in Bologna after our flight from the US. Super excited!

Bologna airport, in my experience (pre-Covid, my last time out of there was August 2019) is a royal mess in the early morning, at least in summer. The airport is not big, but since RyanAir started operating a lot of flights out of there, it has become very busy, and the security area is simply no longer sufficient to process the volume of passengers in a short time. To make a long story short, expect massive long lines at security. Of course things have certainly changed since the pandemic, as air traffic has diminished considerably everywhere, but they definitely need to do something with the security check area when traffic returns to the pre pandemic levels.
I presume you are flying AirFrance or Lufthansa or KLM to their respective hubs. Normally for an intra European flight, checking in 75+ min prior to departure should be sufficient. The check in part is quick as the lines for those airlines are not as chaotic as the RyanAir check in lines. But then everybody has to go through the same security checks, and that is where the bottleneck is. So show up at the check in at least 2 hours prior to departure to be safe.

Really appreciate all the input! I think staying near the airport makes sense then so we aren’t looking for a cab at 5am in the city!