Day 17: San Quirico d'Orcia

Today is the scheduled "free day" in southern Tuscany....no group outings are scheduled and everyone has the option of doing whatever they want....or not doing anything. The weather is fine...warm and sunny....and everyone has a relaxed morning. I have an appointment at 10 am to visit the Casa Lemmi, a fairly new b&b on the main street in town. I have only seen the pictures on the web site and want to see if it is really as nice as it looks.

The owner Antonio...a young man from Naples...runs the place with his wife and it is indeed as nice (if not nicer) than it looks on the internet. The rooms are extremely large and nicely furnished...some with views over the street and the La Collegiata church, others to the back over the garden. And it has the bonus of wireless internet and reasonable prices. Definitely someplace to try in the future...

Four of the group--Seth, Michael, Monica and me--set out on a walk to Bagno Vignoni; the others remain in town to relax, shop, sit or write. Bagno Vignoni is about five kilometers (3 miles) from San Quirico d'Orcia on a gravel road which is quite steep at times. We pass through fields with haystacks and get some great views of the countryside and the village of San Quirico d'Orcia (which looks bigger from this viewpoint.)

Seth had walked this part of the road the other day and had complained about the lack of directional signage.....but we weren't sure what his problem was.

The small hamlet of Vignoni sits on the crest of the hill and looks to be uninhabited...we suspect that the houses are now used as vacation homes.

We pass a large vineyard and Seth stops to investigate....

We notice that there are rosebushes planted at the end of some of the rows of vines

and we are told by a man working in the vines that they are planted to provide an early warning of any diseases that may develop in the field.

Before we enter the town of Bagno Vignoni, Seth and I make an impromptu inspection of the recently opened 5 star Adler Thermae......the facilities appear to be very grand and the pools very attractive.

Bagni Vignoni is famous for its main piazza which is a large pool of water although it is no longer used for bathing.

In order to "take the waters" in Bagno Vignoni, you have to go to the pool at the Hotel Posta Marcucci which, while not as luxurious as the Adler Thermae, has a dynamite view over the valley and up to Castaglione d'Orcia.

We decide to have lunch before calling Jonathan to give us a ride back to San Quirico d'Orcia. We pick a place--the Osteria della Madonnina--that has a sandwich menu but it turns out that they don't serve that menu at lunch. We order some pastas and some vegetables which turn out to be very, very good...and we have a relaxing meal sitting outside on the piazza.

Later in the afternoon, I drive over to Pienza to meet with a client of mine who is staying there and Lisa, Seth and Kerensa come along to do some shopping. Lisa buys a Pienza cheese for her father and we drop her back in San Quirico d'Orcia, pick up Diana and set out to visit a business associate of Seth's who has a small b&b in the area. We meet Seth's associate at another place near San Giovanni d'Asso where there is a big musical evening planned for late in June....the event will include a dinner and a chamber music concert. The setting is unbelieveably beautiful..the house and grounds restored impeccably, the views stupendous. We then go back to see the b&b which is actually in a small, not-so-beautiful village. The b&b is stylish and the owners are very enthusiastic but we are not sure it is a place for most of our clients.

Il Tinaio is closed on Thursdays so for our final dinner together, we go to the hotel's restaurant--L'Antico Forno. Our experience this time is much like we had last year when Diana and I went there...the food was fine by and large but the service was very spotty and lackadasical. Ordering was even more confusing than it usually is for the eight of us--there were not enough of the two different menus and we had to keep passing them around so that everyone could make their selections.

And there were problems with the food also....the bistecca fiorentina came out cooked on one end and cold on the other and a vegetable tart was also cold in the middle. We drank some very local wine--actually from the vineyard that we had walked past earlier in the day on the way to Bagno Vignoni.

Tomorrow we are all going to Perugia together before we have to say our goodbyes.

Day 16: San Quirico d'Orcia

A few words about the guest house where we are staying ....the Casa Camaldoli. It is just down the street from the main hotel and very nicely decorated but less luxurious than the Palazzo del Capitano. The rooms are good sized, bathrooms are fine with good water pressure and plenty of hot water and it is quiet--save for the San Quirico d'Orcia church bells. The roof terrace is a real plus and it is great to have the whole place to ourselves. And we get to take advantage of the hotel facilities (beautiful garden) and breakfast.......

Our Siena trip is delayed a bit due to oversleeping by part of the group but we get on the road by 10:30 am and arrive at the parking lot in Siena by 11:30. We park in the Campo lot which is about a 15 minute walk (partly uphill) to the main piazza in Siena. We are heading to the weekly market which I remember--only when we arrive at the empty Piazza Mercato in the "centro"--is actually held on top of the town near the Fortezza. The climb to the Fortezza is less strenuous than I had remembered and we hit the market (which is very, very big) while it is still in full swing.

But the group is less interested in shopping and browsing and more interested in finding the food section to have lunch.

The food area is at the far end of the market and, while not large, provides us with a chance to sample five different porchetta sandwiches, a roast chicken, some fried vegetables and some melons. The consensus is that the porchetta from the Grosseto truck is the best

and everyone enjoys the roast chicken as well. After a round of coffee, we want to go the big wine library inside the Fortezza and have a glass of wine while sitting on their terrace. Unfortunately, they have changed things around and the terrace is now closed to the public. But we take advantage of the bathroom facilities and sample a few glasses of wine from Molise, Piemonte and Tuscany before resuming our tour of Siena.

Back down to the center, our first stop is the Duomo, one of the largest and most elaborate in Italy. The facade is very distinctive with its striped stones, its intricate carvings and frescoes and the big rose window at the top.

The interior space is overwhelming....the entire floor is covered with illustrations of bible stories, the vast space is supported by sturdy columns and there are statues, frescoes and paintings everywhere--it is hard to figure out where to look first.

I was taken by this sort of whimsical detail from one of the floor panels.

My favorite part of the Siena Duomo is the Piccolomini Library with its wonderful, bright frescoes by Pinturicchio.....they look as if they were just finished last year.

Some of the group head for the top of "facciatone", a large freestanding wall which was supposed to be the back wall of the biggest duomo in Italy but was left incomplete when they ran out of money. Now there is a great view from the top.....but the rest of us opt for some refreshment at one of the many bars that ring the Campo.

After something to drink, four of us are ready to climb the Torre di Mangia which towers about the Campo and Siena.

Rain is threatening by now and we are told that if it rains, we can't climb but we start anyway. It is over 300 feet up (about 400 steps) inside the bell tower...but it is not too tight or claustrophobic. The view from the top is great but just as we get there, it begins to rain pretty hard and it is cold and windy. We take shelter as best we can until it lets up and we get to enjoy the views.

Back down on the ground, the group gathers to go back to San Quirico d'Orcia (after a gelato stop) but just before we get to the garage, it begins to pour again. We take shelter to wait it out but after about ten minutes--when it appears to be letting up--we make a run for it...and the heavens open up again. Everyone is pretty well soaked by the time we get to the garage and we head back immediately. (The rain stops just as we get to the garage....we needed to wait for five more minutes.)

Seth and I set out to find someplace to eat tonight......Il Tinaio is full again....and we take a nice walk around the new town. We discover a couple of informal places and also a nice small hotel with a pool. We decide to eat at another one of the newer places in the "centro storico". The place is called "La Piccheria" and, in addition to being casual and friendly, the food is very good....especially the "pici alla briciole"--thick spaghetti with a sauce of breadcrumbs, oil and garlic. The waitress is very friendly and enjoys joking with Seth. We also drink a very good Rosso di Montalcino. A very successful meal.....

After dinner, a few of the group head for the Bar Centrale for some more "foosball" but most of us head back to the hotel.

Tomorrow is a free day....no activities are scheduled.

Day 15: San Quirico d'Orcia

Another nice morning in the Val d'Orcia. After a leisurely breakfast (in shifts) at the hotel and some work on the computer, the group is off to Montepulciano, another beautiful Tuscan hill town to the east of Pienza. We drive past the extensive field of poppies that I had found the day before and stop for some more photo opportunities.

The scenery continues to be impossibly beautiful and Montepulciano is very impressive sitting on top of its hill as you approach from the south.

We stop first at the Church of San Biagio, a plain, Greek-cross style church sitting below the town with a lovely vista back toward the village of Montefollonico.

The interior is in restauro but still is impressive.

The group takes a short rest at the church before we get back in the car and drive up to the top.

We continue up as far as we can go and park at the last lot before we hit the "centro storico" which is a short easy walk to the main piazza and the duomo. The duomo has a stern, unfinished facade (it was a location in the film "The English Patient") and inside it is quite restrained. The art highlights inside are two Sienese paintings...one an impressive large altarpiece and the other a very stylized Madonna and Child.

The main square is surrounded by old palazzi and the town hall and is very handsome. Some of us make the short climb to the terrace of the Palazzo Comune (previously we had climbed to the top of the tower for a spectacular view but it is closed today) to enjoy the vista, and others take the time to do some shopping.

After a descent down the very steep main street (Montepulciano doesn't do well in the Zurer Travel Index of Level Hill Towns),

we climb back up to the top (we could have taken a bus), we finish shopping (Seth and Kerensa buy a ceramic platter, I buy a belt and Jonathan buys a salami, cheese and truffle paste sandwich which is advertised as an "out of the world sandwich" which he shares and which gets very good reviews from the samplers.

We plan to stop for a sandwich at a big restaurant/bar just outside of town (Pulcini) but we get enticed by the view from the terrace and find that you can only get sandwiches if you sit in the garden. A moderate sized feast ensues---salads, roast chicken, sausages, sides of beans, artichokes, and potatoes--with a pleasant local red wine to wash it down. All the tables on the terrace are filled with non-Italian tourists--the Italian customers are all inside eating bistecca fiorentina--but a good time is had by all.

We make one more stop on the way back to San Quirico d'Orcia at a farm that has a sign advertising plum marmelade. The proprietor interrupts his lunch to come down and let us sample some (and some olive oil) and we buy a half dozen jars of various flavors of preserves.

The afternoon in San Qurico d'Orcia is taken up with naps, work or relaxing in the garden of the hotel.

Ulf and Magdalena come over to San Quirico d'Orcia for a visit...I give them a short tour of the town and then we have a drink in the garden and a nice conversation. After we say our goodbyes (it's always good to visit with Ulf in Italy, which we have done for the last three years), the group reassembles to drive to the abbey of Sant'Antimo (south of Montalcino) for the vespers service which includes the monks singing the service in Gregorian chant.

San Antimo is a very handsome Romanesque church dating to the 12th century and it located in a lush green valley...it is hard to conceive of a more lovely setting.

About 50 tourists have come for the chanting which sounds wonderful in the beautifully serene church interior.

On the return trip, we take the back way past Castiglione d'Orcia on one of the roads that I think is one of the best drives in Italy....the whole route is gorgeous but there are about three kilometers when the road sits on top of a ridge and the vistas in both directions go on forever.

Tonight we are celebrating my birthday dinner at one of the newer restaurants in town...there are lot more people in town and Il Tinaio (the first choice) is booked solid. We had hoped to eat in the garden of the Osenna but it has gotten a bit cool to eat outside. The meal is uneven...some very good pastas--pici with boar and pici with mushrooms, some excellent gnocchi and very good crostones--but the service is a bit slapdash and it takes a while to get to dessert with the birthday candles that Diana has brought to mark the occasion.

After dinner, we stop at the Bar Centrale for some foosball and gelato......

before heading back to the hotel. A very nice day for all and a great birthday for me.

Tomorrow the crew is going to Siena.

Day 14: San Quirico d'Orci

We all sleep well in the guest house in San Quirico d'Orcia and enjoy the great breakfast spread served at the hotel. It's Diana's birthday and she gets a present of Vestri chocolates from Seth and Kerensa. We have a leisurely morning..made even more leisurely for some of us when we discover that the hotel now has high speed wireless service that we can use in the lobby and in front of the hotel.

We head off to Pienza around 11:30 for our get together with Ulf and Magdalena. I think that the main road from San Quirico d'Orcia to Pienza is one of the most scenic in Italy....the beautiful vistas just go on for miles in both directions....and we make a couple of stops for photo opportunities.

We park in the pay lot in Pienza and meet our friends in front of Duomo. The young people take off to explore the town and the four "older" people find a bar, have a drink and talk. We eat on the outdoor terrace at Dal Falco, a nice trattoria just outside the walls, and have a very good lunch....the local pasta speciality--pici--are particularly good, Diana very much enjoys her proscuitto and melone and vegetables are very well prepared. After a group picture,

I make a quick stop at the hotel next door where I have a group coming next week just to make sure all is ready.

We say goodbye to Ulf and Magdalena but we invite them to come over to San Quirico d'Orcia the next day to see the town and visit us in the hotel garden.

Driving back to San Quirico, I take the alternate route through the valley and we discover one of the largest fields of poppies that we have seen....it seem to stretch out along the valley floor for miles. (This picture doesn't do it justice....better ones will be in tomorrow's report.)

Back in San Quirico, some of the group take naps, others sit in the garden of the hotel and read and a few work on their computers. Later in the afternoon, there is some strolling around town and shopping. Seth sets out for a hike through the country and ends up at a castle--Ripa d'Orcia--about five kilometers away. He decides that it is too much to walk back so he calls and asks Jonathan to come and pick him up. We all gather on the roof terrace, drink some wine and eat some cheese and bread, fruit, olive oil and lots of chocolate.

Kerensa sings "When I'm 64" to Diana for her birthday and after the sun sets,

we regroup downstairs in the ground floor sitting room where Michael and Seth play scrabble and the rest of us read and talk.

We have eaten enough bread and cheese, etc. to make dinner unnecessary but around 10 pm, we all walk down to the Bar Centrale--the local hangout bar/gelateria/game room for some gelato and some "piazza sitting".

Tomorrow we are planning to visit Montepulciano.

Day 13: Parma-San Quirico d'Orcia

Warm and sunny again this morning.....the drive from Parma to Florence on the autostrada takes just over two hours. The only scenic part is over the mountains between Bologna and Florence....the Po Valley is very flat with a lot of light industry along the road. The GPS tries to take us through the heart of Florence (we are picking Seth and Kerensa up at the Piazza Santa Croce) but I opt for the less stressful ring road around the "centro storico". We pull up right on the piazza, make contact with them, bring down their luggage (Seth does a great job of stuffing the bags in the trunk) and start out for southern Tuscany.


We decide to take the Via Chiantigiana, the scenic road through the wine country. We make a number of stops for photo opportunities (the scenery is truly beautiful)

and then visit a Slow Food-affiliated market in the piazza in Greve. We taste honey, cheese, biscotti, culatello and wine and Seth has a wonderful time chatting up the exhibitors with his fluent and colloquial Italian.

Next stop is Panzano; we are too late to visit the "mad Tuscan butcher"--Dario Cecchini--but we have a pleasant light lunch in the wine bar on the main square. Two more stops--one for superior gelato at the gelateria in Castellina in Chianti--

and another at the Villa Casalecchi where we miss both the manager (Umberto) and friends from Washington D.C. who are staying there. After a short look around the property, we continue on to San Quirico d'Orcia. The scenery changes dramatically once south of Siena....the gentle hills with few trees and endless vistas (my favorite landscape in all of Italy--I tend to overuse the phrase "impossibly beautiful" to describe it) and we are soon entering the narrow Porta Cappuccini into the village of San Quirico d'Orcia.

Jonathan, Lisa, Michael and Monica arrive from Rome just as we are checking in. They have stopped in Orvieto for lunch, sightseeing and shopping. We have a nice reunion, flowers her birthday are presented to Diana and we unload the luggage in the guesthouse of the Palazzo del Capitano--the Casa Camaldoli--where we are all staying. We have four of the five rooms in the guesthouse....and there is a roof terrace and a living area for us to congregate in.

I take Seth and Michael on a short walk around the village.....it doesn't take too long to see the main street, the formal garden, the rose garden and the view over the walls. After the others rest for a while, we all gather on the roof deck to talk, enjoy the view and to try some wine and cheese.

We have reservations for dinner at Il Tinaio, our favorite restaurant from our stay in San Quirico d'Orcia last year. The place is almost empty on this Sunday night but we have an excellent meal...highlights are the bistecca fiorentina shared by three of the group, the sweet and sour onions and the Tuscan antipasti. We drink an excellent rosso di Montalcino and many desserts are shared by the group.

After dinner, some go right to bed, Lisa and I go for a walk around the village and others go up to the roof deck to admire the night sky and the stars. Tomorrow we plan to visit Pienza and have lunch with our Swedish friend Ulf.

Day 12: Parma

It's warm and sunny this morning as we head out for breakfast. I forgot to mention in yesterday's report that when we got back to the room the night before my mobile phone was missing. After a thorough search of the room, I retraced my steps back to the gelato place but there is no sign of it. The bar where we had drinks was closed. We go back to the same bar to have breakfast and as soon as we walk in, the barman tells us that I had left the phone the night before and he had tried to find us in the street but couldn't.

Happily united with the phone, we have a good breakfast--the barista is a cappuccino artist--and a nice conversation with him about Parma and the U.S. I give him my card and invite him to visit us which he enthusiastically accepts.

We have an appointment to visit an apartment across the river at 11 a.m. so we have time to make a stop at the Teatro Farnese. This large theater--modelled after Palladio's Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza--was built as a performance space for one of Parma's princes in the 17th century. The theater had a large stage area where you could mount large spectacles and the area in front of the seats could be filled with water to stage mock naval battles. The theater was impractical for regular performances and it was used infrequently and then abandoned when the types of events it was made for fell out of fashion.

It was almost totally destroyed by Allied bombing during World War II and it is slowly being restored. It is quite grand...we especially like the unfinished wood which was originally stuccoed and painted and had a completely different look and feel.

On the way to the apartment, we walk through the very large and pleasant Parco Ducale on the other side of the river. The park--which was the grounds of the Ducale Palace--has broad gravel walkways, lots of green space, large trees and benches and is filled with strollers, children on tricycles and joggers.

The apartments are located in a very nice but modest residential area of Parma--a sharp contrast to the grand "centro storico". The owner--Sgr. Pelligrino--is very nice and very accommodating but the apartments are a bit more modest than I was looking for. And, in fact, they may not be available for the weeks when I need them...the Verdi festival (which takes place in September) is interested in renting them for the performers.

We make a quick stop at the neighborhood church which has a very nice cloister and an interesting series of panels illustrating the life and work of Padre Lino Maupas, a local priest who worked with the poor and the disadvantaged of Parma at end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. There had been a candlelight procession through the streets of Parma the night before in his honor.

I was taken with the presepio (Christmas manger scene) inside the church that had the recreated the neighborhood outside the church as the background.

We recross the river and have a light lunch at one of the restaurants on the main square, the Piazza Garibaldi and then stop in the market to buy some cheese--parmigiano-reggiano....some to eat in Italy and some to take home.

In the afternoon, we walk to the laundromat (which we had finally located the day before). This laundromat is not one of the best we have used...the soap machine malfunctions but luckily there is a staff person there who sells us the soap....and the dryer is pretty ineffective, but we do finish the process and have clean clothes. Diana is able to help a young man negotiate the system while we are there. We do notice that few (if any Italians) use the dryer...they fold their clothes while damp and presumably hang them out on a clothes line to dry.

[NOTE: We did have an earlier and much more pleasant laundromat experience that we neglected to write about. In Orbetello, we found a small laundromat near the hotel which was run by a retired seaman who had traveled all around the world and spoke very good English. The place was immaculate, the machines very modern (they even dispensed the soap automatically) and the proprietor did most of the work while carrying on a long nostalgic conversation about his times in the States during the 1970s.]

At dinner time, we walk over to the restaurant where I had made reservations the day before and the lady did remember me. At 8:15 pm, we are the first people seated at the outdoor tables in the street but it soon fills up and people without reservations are being sent away. The restaurant is a Slow Food listing, the Trattoria del Tribunale, and it is mostly very good. We have excellent pastas but the seconds--a porchetta preparation for me--is more pork chops than the stewed pork that I expected--and Diana's steak is good but not exceptional. We have a nice red wine from the Oltrepo in nearby Pavia (the lady at the next table compliments us on our ordering but chides us for not ordering a local Parma wine).

When I go inside to pay the bill, I discover that there is also a large inside room (with an entrance on an adjoining street) which is also completely jammed.

The streets are still filled with Saturday night crowds as we make our way pack to our palazzo. Tomorrow we pick up Seth and Kerensa in Florence and meet up with the rest of the family in southern Tuscany.

Day 11: Parma

After breakfast in the bar down the street from the Palazzo, we head over to the tourist office to inquire about apartment rentals for my client, in case the arrangments at the Rosa Prati don't work out. The staff person goes through her database and gives me the name of a b&b that also has a few apartments in the center but other than that she doesn't have anything else that I don't already have. She also tells us where the laundromat in Parma is....we will try to do a laundry before we leave town.

The Baptistery is our next stop....it is a very tall, octagonal tower (most baptisteries in Italy are octagonal for some reason) made of pink stone located between the Palazzo dalla Rosa Prati and the Duomo. The doors are framed with intricate carvings on the portals and the facade is decorated with rows of columns and blind arches at the top.

Inside it is completely open to the dome with a large baptismal font in the middle of the floor.

As in the Duomo, the walls and the dome are almost completely covered with frescoes of Biblical scenes and statues and carvings but unlike the Duomo, the effect is somehow not as overwhelming.

Maybe it is because everything is closer and the scenes can be identified more easily but it is a much more manageable visit for us and we spend some time admiring the detail and the workmanship.

We make a quick detour back into the Duomo to see if it might feel different with the morning light but, in fact, we have the same feeling as we had the day before. It's just too much for us.

Before getting the car and driving out into the countryside for lunch, we go to the Camera di San Paolo. Located in an old abbey, there are two rooms with frescoed ceilings...one by Correggio and one by Araldi .......which were commissioned in the early 16th century by the Abbess who was trying to maintain her independence from the Pope. The refectory, which was painted by Correggio, is made to look like like a "leafy arbor" with sixteen scenes depicting different philosophical concepts, and charming small "putti" interspersed in playful positions. The other room is, in contrast, very dense and detailed, with very intricate pictures of demons and fantastical creatures set as a background on the ceiling. Interspersed into this almost hallucinatory scene are a number of pictures of biblical scenes in round or rectangular "picture frames" At first, the ceiling is almost impossible to concentrate on but, once you take the time, the demons (with their many different variations) become identifiable and the pictures begin to make sense. It is helpful that the place is empty and the ceilings are well lit and not far away which makes it easier to concentrate on the details. We like these rooms very much -definitely worth a visit.

We walk out of the Camera di San Paolo down a tree lined entrance road

retrieve the car from the garage and, before leaving town, try..unsuccessfully....to find the exact location of the laundromat.

We are going to La Buca, a trattoria in the village of Zibello on the Po River about 50 km northwest of Parma. The town is famous for culatello, a local version of Parma ham, and La Buca is noted for its amazing tagliatelle, which we had a year ago and are eager to have again. The countryside in this region is very flat but somehow attractive in a quiet way. There are fields with vegetables and fruit trees but it appears to be mainly grazing lands and there are large bales of hay (wrapped in plastic) scattered in almost every field.

Even though the terrain is very flat, the roads are quite curvy so the flatness never becomes as boring as it might with lots of straightaways. We make one stop in Colorno, just north of Parma, to take a look at the Reggia which was built by one of the dukes as a summer villa but was later expanded by the Bourbons into a "minature Versailles". We don't stop to admire the extensive grounds but we do stop at the weekly market to buy some strawberries and peas.

There are only a few tables occupied at La Buca..we eat outside and again have a fabulous meal. Diana says again that the tagliatelle with culatello is the best pasta she has ever had and my "anolini" (tiny stuffed rings of pasta) are not quite as exceptional but the sausage based sauce is terrific. We also share a plate of culatello and salami which are excellent, a piece of wonderful parmigiano-reggiano with pear mostardo (conserve) and have small carafe of wine. I am sure that we will return anytime we are within a hour of Zibello.

After lunch, we stop by the banks of the Po for a short rest....

...and then a short visit to Busseto (Verdi's hometown) where we had stayed for a week some years ago. The main reason for stopping is to buy some parmigiano-reggiano from our favorite cheese store in the town but it doesn't open when the rest of the town comes back to life at 4 pm (perhaps it is closed or they are on vacation). We sit in the bar in the center of town while we wait and watch the locals playing cards.
It is still a very attractive town and has lots of recommend it, especially for Verdi lovers and opera fans.

Back in Parma, I go out to check out a few restaurants. This brings me to a part of the city that we haven't been to yet. It is mostly pedestrian with lovely streets and nice shops and, on this early Friday evening, it is buzzing with people walking and drinking at the many wine bars that line the streets. The restaurant that where I want to eat is full that evening so I ask for a reservation for the next night. The lady in charge says okay but doesn't take my name or write anything down....so we will hope for the best.

We decide that this will be a good night to skip dinner so we take a stroll in the same area and stop at one of the quiet bars for a prosecco and some free snacks that are set out on the bar. As we are leaving, the barman--after not saying two words to us--starts talking to us in English and we have a pleasant conversation. We stop for a gelato at Grom, the famous gelateria that began in Torino and now has many branches in Italy and one in New York. The gelato is very good and we walk home through the main square, the Piazza Garibaldi which is nicely lit at night.

Tomorrow we will look at some apartments for my client who is coming to Parma.