Last Day in Milan & Off to Parma

Our day started out well. We woke up early enough to FaceTime with Kailin...it was late for her, but she's used to it. The video of her was good enough for Scott to notice that she had a fat lip! Apparently she was basing at cheer practice and got elbowed. At least it wasn't her sister!


Had breakfast at a creperie near our hotel. There were so many choices of savory fillings that it was hard to choose. We went back to the area with the museum for the Leonardo exhibit. It was interesting as they had pages of his drawings, mathematical and scientific sketches, notes and other informal writings on display. What an amazing man. The rest of the museum had an assortment of art from various artists in different mediums. It was a good find from a flyer we picked up at a restaurant.



We picked up a picnic lunch for our train trip at a ritzy Italian bakery. Once again, it was hard to choose! The dessert choice, however, was easy....fresh cannoli with a ricotta, chocolate and orange filling. It was hard to wait. But it was worth the wait and I was lucky we were on the train when I ate it or I might have gone back to get more and I would have exploded! The train station in Milan is an incredible sight.

Train Station in Milan

It is an enormous building that looks more like a well preserved Roman ruin than a train station. The train ride was nice (just over an hour) and the countryside looked like we were traveling through the Willamette valley.

Countryside between Milan & Pisa

Arrived in Parma with a couple ideas for B&Bs to stay at so we hopped in a taxi and got dropped off in the general vicinity. It was raining of course and we are rolling our bags over the noisy cobblestone streets trying to find either one. After back-tracking a few times and eventually ignoring the map on my iPad, we found one, but there was no answer! The other one just plain didn't exist at the location listed on TripAdvisor. I stopped into a little shop and asked the owner for directions. He was extremely friendly and helpful and gave me all sorts of instructions in Italian...it's hard to believe, but he knew less English than I knew Italian! We went on our way following his directions the best we could. A few minutes later he tracked us down riding his bike and carrying an umbrella. He then led us to the area he was trying to tell us about. We thanked him and then he was on his way. Needless to say, the place he led us to did not have any places to stay either. We asked more people and went on other wild goose chases until we gave up and headed back into the center of town. Tired and wet, we finally found a nice little hotel tucked away down a back street.

Santa Maria Assunta

After dropping our stuff off, we headed back out to explore since we were now in the heart of old Parma. Wandered through some beautiful churches...there are many here in close proximity to each other. The largest one, Santa Maria Assunta, looks fairly drab and unfinished on the outside. But the inside is magnificent!

Santa Maria Assunta

Mini-Kailin Garbage Truck!

We found a future profession for Kailin here (other than personal shopper!). She always takes a liking to the especially small vehicles in Italy and we found another one for her today. It was a mini garbage truck and it was just her size.

After some window-shopping, we finally sat down for some wine, the famous Prosciutto di Parma and some blog-time. The wine and prosciutto were great, but my iPad froze up on me! After many attempts to wake it up and a few frantic texts and phone calls (thank you Debbie!), I ended up borrowing the PC at our hotel and Googled for a solution. Success! I'm back up and running again.

Proscuitto di Parma & Parmigiano-Reggiano

 

We celebrated by having a late dinner at a local restaurant known for it's authentic Parma cuisine, not tourist fare. Of course we had to sample all that is "Parma".... Prosciutto and Melon, Parmigiano-Reggiano and 3 types of tortelli (ravioli). They had a carver right upfront carving massive amounts of Prosciutto as customers kept ordering! It was a fantastic meal. The Parmeseano-Reggiano at Costco is good, but this was delicious!