parma via trieste, venice, bolonga
so i think i can finally deem myself recovered from the train trip from hell we enduered from ljubljana - complete with a 3am departure, obnoxious drunken englishmen, delays, re-routes, extra stops, no sleep and stifling humidity the next day. i didn't really mind hell all that much though because i was well aware of that which awaited us at our destination... lucy, on the other hand, was not.
parma is a beautiful little city in the "heart" of italy's north - yep, home of parmigiano-reggiano. the champagne of the cheese world. parma is, to our delight, pretty much the food capital of italy and we have been treated to the interminable hospitality of la famiglia - a combination that would strike fear into the heart of the dieter. i, however, am not on a diet so there is no problem with stacking the kilo's on.... i haven't yet managed to do so but if we weren't to leave tomorrow then i think that all this would change.
i am struggling to string a sentace together this morning... maybe speaking in simlpistic english to italian cousins with little english has erased some of my vocabularly.
anyway we have had 1 day of sleepnig and 2 days of sightseeing here in parma, each day broken up by an emmense and delicious meal at my grandfathers sisters place. mother of the family here which stems a family line very similar in generations and ages to that of our family in sydney. so it goes without saying that i feel very at home here, and day-trips to bologna, ferrara and the parma countryside have become family outings. the region is quite beautiful, with most of the cities built along the via emilia by the romans - the main drag from milan to rome - in the 12th century. unlike australia the countryside is spattered with habitation, and farmers plow the fields right up to the shoulder of the highway. i guess this is what happens when you have 52million people in a geographic area the size of nsw. it is the fertility of the land is what infuses all of the produce here with flavour, and my family say that if you travel just one region to the east or west the quality is entirely different.
i learnt all these things as we drove from castle to castle in the countryside sampling food, paste (pastries), prosciutto crudo (the best), pizza (real pizza according to my cousins who had just returned from a holiday in australia... but they're pretty much right), local wine and torta-fritta (basically fried bread). we ate and drank and ate and drank and then i kicked around with stefano and his band who play some pretty cool covers. unfortunately i'll miss a gig they are playing sometime next week but will have another bash when we stop by here on our way back through parma enroute to milan.
one more dinner tonight with the whole family at anna maria's house and then tomorrow we are off to the cinque terra and then southward to rome
molto bene
parma is a beautiful little city in the "heart" of italy's north - yep, home of parmigiano-reggiano. the champagne of the cheese world. parma is, to our delight, pretty much the food capital of italy and we have been treated to the interminable hospitality of la famiglia - a combination that would strike fear into the heart of the dieter. i, however, am not on a diet so there is no problem with stacking the kilo's on.... i haven't yet managed to do so but if we weren't to leave tomorrow then i think that all this would change.
i am struggling to string a sentace together this morning... maybe speaking in simlpistic english to italian cousins with little english has erased some of my vocabularly.
anyway we have had 1 day of sleepnig and 2 days of sightseeing here in parma, each day broken up by an emmense and delicious meal at my grandfathers sisters place. mother of the family here which stems a family line very similar in generations and ages to that of our family in sydney. so it goes without saying that i feel very at home here, and day-trips to bologna, ferrara and the parma countryside have become family outings. the region is quite beautiful, with most of the cities built along the via emilia by the romans - the main drag from milan to rome - in the 12th century. unlike australia the countryside is spattered with habitation, and farmers plow the fields right up to the shoulder of the highway. i guess this is what happens when you have 52million people in a geographic area the size of nsw. it is the fertility of the land is what infuses all of the produce here with flavour, and my family say that if you travel just one region to the east or west the quality is entirely different.
i learnt all these things as we drove from castle to castle in the countryside sampling food, paste (pastries), prosciutto crudo (the best), pizza (real pizza according to my cousins who had just returned from a holiday in australia... but they're pretty much right), local wine and torta-fritta (basically fried bread). we ate and drank and ate and drank and then i kicked around with stefano and his band who play some pretty cool covers. unfortunately i'll miss a gig they are playing sometime next week but will have another bash when we stop by here on our way back through parma enroute to milan.
one more dinner tonight with the whole family at anna maria's house and then tomorrow we are off to the cinque terra and then southward to rome
molto bene
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