December 13, 2009

  • Parma

    At about 9pm on Friday night I decided it would be good to go somewhere on Saturday. I need to make the most of still being relatively free at the moment as I don't yet know exactly how pressurized my time will be in the new year. If my timetable changes and I end up having to go to school Mon-Thurs AND Sat, and Friday is going to be taken up with the course in Verona + he said we need an extra day per week to study, I won't have much time left for gallavanting!

    Some of the top destinations on my "cities to visit" list are a little bit far away to decide at 9pm the night before, so out of the remainder, I chose Parma. A quick check on meteo.it told me that it was going to be mostly sunny with a few clouds which is my perfect day trip weather. I think if the forecast had been rain then I wouldn't have gone - spending a day out in the cold and rain isn't much fun. Just cold I can cope with (and cold it was, freeeezing!).

    Parma reminded me very much of its near neighbour and fellow Emilia-Romagnan city Bologna. The architecture, the streets, the tram lines, everything. I've been to Bologna 3 times (each only for a brief visit) and have always liked it, so Parma was another delight. I was especially taken with the Duomo. Unfortunately the tower is covered in scaffolding at the moment so the outside was a bit marred, but inside was spectacular. It was one of those places that I walked in and just thought "wow". The same with Antelami's Baptistery next door. It's built in pink coloured Verona stone which I love.

    The lions outside the Duomo reminded me of those outside pretty much every Duomo I have visited in recent weeks (except Brescia in fact, which is lionless). For the first time ever, I paid to listen to the description of the cathedral on one of those machine things. Aside from the fact that the woman delivering the English version had THE most irritating and screechy voice (such that I had to hold the telephone well away from my ear to avoid getting a headache) it was very interesting, and in fact it was that that informed me (or reminded me, as I must have known this before!) that the lions are there as a symbol of Christ.

    The cupola fresco is a work of Coreggio, supposedly one of his most famous. My Rough Guide tells how a contemporary likened it to a "hash of frog's legs" and that Dickens, when he visited, said that it was a sight that "no operative surgeon gone mad could imagine in his wildest delirium". Obviously the photo doesn't really do it justice, but here it is so you can judge for yourselves!

     


    Oh, and I had to laugh on the way in at the rather unfortunate translation. It would have been better if they had attempted to include the 'con cavalletto' (which means using a tripod)... don't make shooting with tripods would have been a bit clearer than the image of people going in to the Duomo waving guns being ordered 'don't make shooting'. "No photography using tripods" would have been my choice I think. Ahh the joys of translation!


    After having visited the Duomo I was stopped by someone in the street with a petition to sign (and donate to the cause...) She had tried to get me to do it on the way up the street and I had avoided it, but I couldn't really avoid it again on the way back. It was for a drug rehab centre, and interestingly the headquarters is Brescia based and she was telling me that they go to Brescia for New Year. She had the petition in every language, and I was interested to see on the UK page that one of the previous donations came from Horsham!

    Complete set of Parma photos here
    Oh, as I forgot to post the link to my Sardegna photos, they are here !

    Anyway, all in all another fine day out. I think it was probably my last before Christmas as I think next weekend will be taken up with packing and preparing for the big return to the UK and the trip to Poznan. I've got to somehow fit enough clothes for 2 weeks (including a week in Poznan, Poland which is going to be collllllllld so requires warm/thick clothes!), Christmas presents, various books/DVDs/souvenirs that I have bought and need to take home (I'll never fit them all in at the end of the year), all in a small hand luggage sized suitcase. I'm not taking it as hand luggage as I'm also taking my laptop home, so I'll have a bit of extra room in my rucksack, but still, it's not going to be easy packing!!

    So I'll have to wait until the new year to carry on my explorations of Italy, in the hope that I do have SOME time to visit places! This is my list as it now stands: 12 down! (regions visited in bold)...I need to do a tour of the South!

    Abruzzo
    Basilicata
    Calabria
    Campania - Napoli, Sorrento, Pompeii & Herculaneum, Amalfi
    Emilia Romagna - Bologna, Forli, Parma
    Friuli Venezia Giulia - Trieste
    Lazio - Roma
    Liguria - Genova
    Lombardia - Milano, Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona, Mantova,
    Marches
    Molise
    Piemonte - Torino
    Puglia
    Sardegna - Cagliari, Pula/Nora
    Sicilia
    Trentino Alto-Adige - Trento, Bolzano, Rovereto, Merano, Tirolo, Riva del Garda etc
    Toscana - Firenze, Pisa, Siena, Isola d'Elba
    Umbria - Perugia, Assisi
    Valle d'Aosta
    Veneto - Venezia, Treviso, Verona, Vicenza, Padova (+ Lake Garda, various towns cross-region)