Parma

As our time in Italy is coming to an end (we go home in 4 months!), We have assembled a "bucket list" so to speak of places that we want to visit.  Parma was on that list and this weekend was the opening of the Parma Prosciutto Festival.  It seemed like a natural.

Parma is little over an hour south of us.  We had no idea where in Parma we were going, just centro.  So every time we came to a traffic limited zone we would attempt to drive around it until we could see some big neat buildings.  We finally found a parking lot that seemed like it was kind of close to centro.  We came up from lower level 3 and had no idea where to go.  So we just began to follow where most of the people were going.  I saw this great knocker on the way.

Walking down the street we finally came to a major intersection and across the street was this civic building with two sun dials on it.  One for the morning and the lower one for the afternoon.  The sun dial said about 9:40 but it was actually 10:40.  I guess they did not have daylight savings time when the sun dial was built.

An electric bicycle

A fabulous tree inside of this private court yard.

The baptistry

Next door was the duomo.  They were working on the bell tower.

Inside the Duomo every surface was painted.  Very colorful

The organ

As we walked  back to the main town pizza I spied this knocker.  This is the largest and newest knocker I have seen in Italy.

It was the Parma ham (prosciutto) festival.  In a central portico they had a great display of thier world famous hams.  They are not smoked, just hung to dry and packed with salt and a few other seasonings.  Typically the meat is sliced very very thin and served raw - called prosciutto crudo.  We bought a very nice plate of it that came with a basket of bread, some fresh figs, grapes, and their other very famous food Parmagiano reggiano.  It was a great snack / 1st lunch.

Walking back to the car we found  a Prosciutto store.  They had everything in this place.

We then drove about 15 miles up in the hills to Langhirano - a small town that is the center of the Prosciutto industry.  They even had a ham museum here.  Here is where the real festival was going on. Three streets full of booths, vendors, and all kinds of neat stuff.  We found a small restaurant that besides selling prosciutto plates was also selling tortelli herbe.  This is a regional dish with pasta stuffed with ricotta cheese and fresh herbs served with olive oil and lots of parmigiano reggiano.  We had this for lunch and it was fabulous.  Sometimes I feel like I am eating my way through Italy

There as this castle just a couple of miles from Langhirano called Torrechiara

We drove up to the castle and went for a hike to get up and into it.

Inside was fabulous.  Every interior wall was hand painted.  Each with a different theme.

Those are tomato filed down there.  most have been harvested, but one of them still has tomatoes growing.

The view from the castle was great!

This castle was built in the early 1400's.  Before Columbus discovered America!

How about this for a kitchen

As I was walking down one of the exterior halls there was this tiny door.  I looked inside and behold! it is an ancient bathroom.  Many of the public restrooms in Italy are just a hole in the floor, just like this.  The wash room where we ate lunch was very new construction, very nice tile on the walls and floor.  But is was just this size and had a ceramic covered hole in the floor.  I am amazed that some things have not changed for centuries.