Le nostre avventure in Italia...Parte Prima!

...or our adventures in Italy to you! 

You may have already seen my recent post where I debunked a couple of Italian travel myths, but now I thought it was about time I shared a little bit about our trip to Italy.  I'd never been to Italy before and having watched Italy Unpacked with Giorgio Locatelli at the tail-end of last year we thought that it looked an interesting place to go and decided to take the plunge. We've always had plans to explore the world a little bit more but have been waiting for a time when the children were more able to cope with the strains and sometimes boredom of travelling. Well that time has come!

To get to Italy, we came via France (more on that in another post) which meant we were facing a baptism of fire with our first experience of Italy being the Italian rail system! I have to say I had no complaints. I booked our tickets before we left England using the somewhat flaky Trenitalia website and everything ran like clockwork. 

Our first leg of the trip once we'd trekked halfway across Italy was Parma.

Our accommodation in Parma was at the Palazzo Dalla Rosa Prati, a hotel in part of a centuries old palace which is situated in the quiet piazza near the duomo and right next door to the baptistry. First impressions of the hotel were good, it has a beautiful location, extremely friendly and helpful staff and is just beautifully furnished. Breakfast was served in room at a time of your choosing and was plentiful - no way you could go hungry! I would wholeheartedly recommend it as a place to stay if you're in Parma and want to be central. 

The outside of our hotel

Breakfast delivered to your room. The hotel in cookie form, left on the bed!

You don't need a car to get around Parma, and certainly most of it is pedestrianised (just watch out for the bicycles!) but if you want to do a food tour (Parma is of course home to Prosciutto di Parma and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, as well as having Modena, the home of Balsamic vinegar nearby) or travel slightly further out of the city centre then a car would be helpful .   Parma is a charming place and not too touristy at all, I loved it here and I can understand why it has been said that Parma has one of the highest standards of living in Italy.

What we did in Parma...

We didn't really have too long in Parma and mainly spent the time soaking up the atmosphere and the glorious sunshine but being situated next to the Battistero di Parma and the Cattedrale di Parma it would have been rude not to look around the duomo which I have to say is pretty spectacular. The main feature is the beautifully decorated dome - the fresco is of the Assumption by Antonio da Correggio and is worth having a look at. 

A pretty bad attempt at trying to show you the decorated dome! 

Inside the cathedral

Another place we went to was the Teatro Farnese which adjoins the Galleria Nazionale. The Teatro Farnese - an absolutely stunning theatre made entirely out of wood and plaster in 1618. Sadly the theatre was pretty much reduced to rubble during an Allied air raid in WWII but it was lovingly rebuilt and finally reopened in 1962. 

Inside the Teatro Farnese

Painted wood & plaster to look like marble. Strange limbless childlike figures.

Places we ate in Parma 

Al Corsaro  - reasonably priced pizza, good house wine, friendly staff - though not English speaking, they certainly tried their best and their English was better than my Italian!

Trattoria Corrieri - an authentic looking trattoria hidden in a quiet back street. Friendly staff. I tried the torta fritta, yummy and much bigger than I was expecting! The rest of the food was average, tasty, but nothing to write home about. 

Gelateria Novecento - An understated gelateria that we stopped by a couple of times, always greeted with a smile. Not as celebrated as others in Parma like Ciacco or Emilia Cremeria but with two young children, we weren't looking for fancy flavours when cioccolato and vaniglia sufficed!

Hope you enjoyed a sneak peek into our Parma trip.

Next stop: Bologna.