Thursday, May 10, 2007

Day 10: Lerici -Parma

The castello looks nice bathed in the early morning sun......

We are checking out today and heading for Parma. We always enjoy our visits to Lerici and look forward to returning to the Doria Park as long as we are able to negotiate the stairs and the hill.

The autostrada to Parma is one of the more scenic that we know.....it climbs over the heavily forested Appennines with rocky crags in the distance and then descends on the other side to the very flat Po River plain. The drive takes about an hour and a half and when we reach the toll plaza, we call the owner of the place where we are staying and he guides us by phone to our destination. We enter Parma through its commercial center (near the train station) but soon enter the very beautiful and sophisticated "centro storico". Vittorio tells us to ignore the signs that forbid automobiles and we end up right on the edge of the Piazza del Duomo...the Palazzo dalla Rosa Prati is the pink building right next to Parma's most famous building, the Baptistery.

We have a lovely "suite"--a large room with a kitchenette and wonderful views over the Piazza Duomo. We unpack and go next door for lunch; we sit at outdoor tables of the bar next door and have pretty good sandwiches. After lunch, we talk some business with Vittorio who owns the Palazzo (it has been in his family since the 1400s). I have clients who want to stay in Parma and one reason we are here is to check out apartment possibilities for the client.

We walk over to to the Duomo which on the outside is quite austere and dignified.....rows of columns line the front (like the cathedral in Pisa) and big statues of lions guard the entrance and support the entrance portico.



This exterior doesn't prepare you for the interior...where almost every inch of space--walls, ceiling and dome--is covered with frescoes. There are so many frescoes in such profusion that it is hard to concentrate on them without getting dizzy.



We beat a hasty retreat, walk over to the Baptistery but decide to postpone our visit until tomorrow. It is too warm for a major exploration so we go back to the hotel for a rest and to get some work done on the computer--taking advantage of the high speed internet in the room.

Later in the afternoon, I go out to check out some dinner possibilities and explore some parts of town that we haven't yet visited. We eat dinner at the Antica Cereria, a trattoria that is listed in the Slow Food Guide d'Osterie. It is located on the far side of the river...the part of town called the Oltretorrente....which has a beautiful large park--Parco Ducale--and is more residential and middle class than the "centro storico". The restaurant is located in an old candle factory and dinner is half good. The pasta course is excellent--Diana has the tagliatelle with culatello and I have a baked ricotta gnocchi dish served with a light cheese sauce. Our seconds are less successful....a guinea hen stuffed with a cheese and bread filling for Diana and a roast rabbit for me--both not bad but not memorable. This is another place where you have to go to the wine cellar to pick out your wine. I take a chance on an unknown (to me) wine--a red from Franciacorta in Lombardia---and it turns out to be quite good. Diana orders the sbrisalona tart--a sort of a coffee cake with a nut crumble topping that comes from Mantova--which is very good.

We take a stroll through the main square and down the main pedestrian street back to the hotel. Tomorrow we will take a drive into the countryside and have lunch at La Buca.

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