General impressions:

Parking and driving is a breeze, or so it appeared to us and walking did not require any particular survival skills. Although we missed a number of recommended venues for art I would recommend you grab a good guidebook and check things out for yourself. (We used the Rough Guide to Italy.) And certainly stop at the TI office before beginning your local trek. Oh, and it would appear that like many other parts of Italy most museums and attractions are close don Monday.

Food costs are quite a bit lower than in Florence of Tuscany and I suspect that may also be the case for lodging but not certain on that point.
Ferrara is clean, quiet, orderly and more akin to the kind of place we would feel most comfortable in spending the next few years of our lives. No tourists, or rather very few, and virtually no dog poop or pigeon droppings either. It would be a great place to break up a trip wedged between the intensity usually experienced by the harried traveler to Venice or Florence.