Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Solo performance, Teatro Farnese, Parma

Late night gorging margarita pizza and Italian gelato? Check! Early morning fluffing around and then racing to the train station? Check! Successfully purchasing tickets from the automated ticket machine? Check! Having ticket in hand and looking at the arrival board for your departing train then like headless chickens racing around in different directions, searching for the platform? Oh rooster.... That was us.

Ancient porticos in Piazza Pillota

On our way to Galleria Nazionale

Our adventure to ancient Parma started off with a solid dose of nerve-racking ambiguity. 

Looking towards Piazza del Duomo

Where was our train?? Although in hindsight it didn't really matter if we missed the train because we could have gotten on the next one but it's that feeling you get when you know your train's departing in less than 5minutes (according to the big flashing red station clock) and you have no idea from where! 

Your super unhelpful generic ticket has no number, line, platform, final destination or even time on it! And there's a little voice at the back of your mind saying 'validate! validate! we need to validate the tickets'. 

Asking around provided us with several shoulder shrugs and does the train leave from here? 'we hope so'. So with a blasé holiday attitude we decided what's the worst that can happen if we got on the wrong train. 

Ham, Ham, Ham, Ham, Ham! 

Fast forward an hour, we arrived to PARMA! Ok phew, blasé or not, we didn't really want to be in the wrong town. For Parma was particularly where our taste buds really preferred to be! Not only a gastronomical experience for its famous Parmesan Reggiano and Parma ham but also little Parma has a long history dating back to 1500BC, when there was something called a terremare (a very ancient square shaped village built on dry land) so there's also plenty of 'old stuff' to check out. 


Another little fact is that Parma also contributed to the 'green' part of the Italian flag. 

Can you believe this is a main road?

Quiet side street waiting for lunchtime

After arriving we marched off to the centre on a mission to find some of those local delicacies! Parma was quite a surprise! Not really village feel but not quite city feel it was caught in between. Small and colourful the houses were stuck side by side. 

Cyclists and yellow buildings

Us by the Palazzo del Governatore 

The streets and footpaths were full with cyclists and large interesting shaped churches loomed over the roads and cobbled plazas. Similar to Bologna there were plenty of places where one could stop for gelato or even a sweet pastry of sorts. 

Some bubbly- why yes! 

Left or right? So pretty! 

After a solid look around both the scorching main streets and smaller more intimate dry back roads we purchased some prosciutto and Parma cheese and large bottle of rosé. We took our little picnic to the park located over the driest of dry river beds and forced to share it kindly with an extended family of cheerful wasps who, it seems, quite fancy prosciutto.

John inside the Galleria Nazionale

After lunch we went via the Galleria Nazionale and Teatro Farnese which are located in the large Palazzo Pillota with its towering and cold looking centre. The Teatro was just beautiful, made of wood and with intricate carvings the elegant Baroque style theatre has been restored to its glory after suffering bomb attacks in WWII. The Teatro (theatre in English) was really amazing and with nobody else there we got on stage and Kara preformed a little from the nutcracker. 

A work of.. art

After a good look around in the last of our rosé goggles, we made our way back to the train station. The one low-light of our trip was the train home. With no air-conditioning and over 42degrees outside it was unbearable! Even the yellow fields of sunflowers and the plantations of vines couldn't reduce our unforgettable suffering. We stuck to the leather seats in a pool of our own sweat and that of the people before us, the only small consolation was that everyone else was suffering us much as us and we all seemed to grimace in uncomfortable sticky, wet, silence together. 

Tomorrow the Italian summer circuit continues!

Tot siens,

John and Kara