Day 12: Parma
It's warm and sunny this morning as we head out for breakfast. I forgot to mention in yesterday's report that when we got back to the room the night before my mobile phone was missing. After a thorough search of the room, I retraced my steps back to the gelato place but there is no sign of it. The bar where we had drinks was closed. We go back to the same bar to have breakfast and as soon as we walk in, the barman tells us that I had left the phone the night before and he had tried to find us in the street but couldn't.
Happily united with the phone, we have a good breakfast--the barista is a cappuccino artist--and a nice conversation with him about Parma and the U.S. I give him my card and invite him to visit us which he enthusiastically accepts.
We have an appointment to visit an apartment across the river at 11 a.m. so we have time to make a stop at the Teatro Farnese. This large theater--modelled after Palladio's Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza--was built as a performance space for one of Parma's princes in the 17th century. The theater had a large stage area where you could mount large spectacles and the area in front of the seats could be filled with water to stage mock naval battles. The theater was impractical for regular performances and it was used infrequently and then abandoned when the types of events it was made for fell out of fashion.
It was almost totally destroyed by Allied bombing during World War II and it is slowly being restored. It is quite grand...we especially like the unfinished wood which was originally stuccoed and painted and had a completely different look and feel.
On the way to the apartment, we walk through the very large and pleasant Parco Ducale on the other side of the river. The park--which was the grounds of the Ducale Palace--has broad gravel walkways, lots of green space, large trees and benches and is filled with strollers, children on tricycles and joggers.
The apartments are located in a very nice but modest residential area of Parma--a sharp contrast to the grand "centro storico". The owner--Sgr. Pelligrino--is very nice and very accommodating but the apartments are a bit more modest than I was looking for. And, in fact, they may not be available for the weeks when I need them...the Verdi festival (which takes place in September) is interested in renting them for the performers.
We make a quick stop at the neighborhood church which has a very nice cloister and an interesting series of panels illustrating the life and work of Padre Lino Maupas, a local priest who worked with the poor and the disadvantaged of Parma at end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. There had been a candlelight procession through the streets of Parma the night before in his honor.
I was taken with the presepio (Christmas manger scene) inside the church that had the recreated the neighborhood outside the church as the background.
We recross the river and have a light lunch at one of the restaurants on the main square, the Piazza Garibaldi and then stop in the market to buy some cheese--parmigiano-reggiano....some to eat in Italy and some to take home.
In the afternoon, we walk to the laundromat (which we had finally located the day before). This laundromat is not one of the best we have used...the soap machine malfunctions but luckily there is a staff person there who sells us the soap....and the dryer is pretty ineffective, but we do finish the process and have clean clothes. Diana is able to help a young man negotiate the system while we are there. We do notice that few (if any Italians) use the dryer...they fold their clothes while damp and presumably hang them out on a clothes line to dry.
[NOTE: We did have an earlier and much more pleasant laundromat experience that we neglected to write about. In Orbetello, we found a small laundromat near the hotel which was run by a retired seaman who had traveled all around the world and spoke very good English. The place was immaculate, the machines very modern (they even dispensed the soap automatically) and the proprietor did most of the work while carrying on a long nostalgic conversation about his times in the States during the 1970s.]
At dinner time, we walk over to the restaurant where I had made reservations the day before and the lady did remember me. At 8:15 pm, we are the first people seated at the outdoor tables in the street but it soon fills up and people without reservations are being sent away. The restaurant is a Slow Food listing, the Trattoria del Tribunale, and it is mostly very good. We have excellent pastas but the seconds--a porchetta preparation for me--is more pork chops than the stewed pork that I expected--and Diana's steak is good but not exceptional. We have a nice red wine from the Oltrepo in nearby Pavia (the lady at the next table compliments us on our ordering but chides us for not ordering a local Parma wine).
When I go inside to pay the bill, I discover that there is also a large inside room (with an entrance on an adjoining street) which is also completely jammed.
The streets are still filled with Saturday night crowds as we make our way pack to our palazzo. Tomorrow we pick up Seth and Kerensa in Florence and meet up with the rest of the family in southern Tuscany.
Happily united with the phone, we have a good breakfast--the barista is a cappuccino artist--and a nice conversation with him about Parma and the U.S. I give him my card and invite him to visit us which he enthusiastically accepts.
We have an appointment to visit an apartment across the river at 11 a.m. so we have time to make a stop at the Teatro Farnese. This large theater--modelled after Palladio's Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza--was built as a performance space for one of Parma's princes in the 17th century. The theater had a large stage area where you could mount large spectacles and the area in front of the seats could be filled with water to stage mock naval battles. The theater was impractical for regular performances and it was used infrequently and then abandoned when the types of events it was made for fell out of fashion.
It was almost totally destroyed by Allied bombing during World War II and it is slowly being restored. It is quite grand...we especially like the unfinished wood which was originally stuccoed and painted and had a completely different look and feel.
On the way to the apartment, we walk through the very large and pleasant Parco Ducale on the other side of the river. The park--which was the grounds of the Ducale Palace--has broad gravel walkways, lots of green space, large trees and benches and is filled with strollers, children on tricycles and joggers.
The apartments are located in a very nice but modest residential area of Parma--a sharp contrast to the grand "centro storico". The owner--Sgr. Pelligrino--is very nice and very accommodating but the apartments are a bit more modest than I was looking for. And, in fact, they may not be available for the weeks when I need them...the Verdi festival (which takes place in September) is interested in renting them for the performers.
We make a quick stop at the neighborhood church which has a very nice cloister and an interesting series of panels illustrating the life and work of Padre Lino Maupas, a local priest who worked with the poor and the disadvantaged of Parma at end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. There had been a candlelight procession through the streets of Parma the night before in his honor.
I was taken with the presepio (Christmas manger scene) inside the church that had the recreated the neighborhood outside the church as the background.
We recross the river and have a light lunch at one of the restaurants on the main square, the Piazza Garibaldi and then stop in the market to buy some cheese--parmigiano-reggiano....some to eat in Italy and some to take home.
In the afternoon, we walk to the laundromat (which we had finally located the day before). This laundromat is not one of the best we have used...the soap machine malfunctions but luckily there is a staff person there who sells us the soap....and the dryer is pretty ineffective, but we do finish the process and have clean clothes. Diana is able to help a young man negotiate the system while we are there. We do notice that few (if any Italians) use the dryer...they fold their clothes while damp and presumably hang them out on a clothes line to dry.
[NOTE: We did have an earlier and much more pleasant laundromat experience that we neglected to write about. In Orbetello, we found a small laundromat near the hotel which was run by a retired seaman who had traveled all around the world and spoke very good English. The place was immaculate, the machines very modern (they even dispensed the soap automatically) and the proprietor did most of the work while carrying on a long nostalgic conversation about his times in the States during the 1970s.]
At dinner time, we walk over to the restaurant where I had made reservations the day before and the lady did remember me. At 8:15 pm, we are the first people seated at the outdoor tables in the street but it soon fills up and people without reservations are being sent away. The restaurant is a Slow Food listing, the Trattoria del Tribunale, and it is mostly very good. We have excellent pastas but the seconds--a porchetta preparation for me--is more pork chops than the stewed pork that I expected--and Diana's steak is good but not exceptional. We have a nice red wine from the Oltrepo in nearby Pavia (the lady at the next table compliments us on our ordering but chides us for not ordering a local Parma wine).
When I go inside to pay the bill, I discover that there is also a large inside room (with an entrance on an adjoining street) which is also completely jammed.
The streets are still filled with Saturday night crowds as we make our way pack to our palazzo. Tomorrow we pick up Seth and Kerensa in Florence and meet up with the rest of the family in southern Tuscany.
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