Day 24 - Parma

# Campari & Soda: 0, # Gelati: 1

Today was a Sunday so I took a day trip to Parma.  I had wanted to visit the Museum of Pasta, the Museum of Parmigiano Reggiano and the Museum of Prosciutto but they are all in villages outside Parma itself.  Instead, I settled on the Casa della Musica, the Museo Glauco Lombardi and the Teatro Farnese.

I slept in and then sauntered off to the railway station.  I got there 7 minutes before a train was due to leave, which should have been plenty of time.  However, the Trenitalia app, which will normally sell you a ticket virtually instantaneously, decided today to be super slow.  I ended up having to run for the train while still seeing a spinning wheel on the payment page.  I sat in the train, clutching my phone, worried that the payment would fail.  If it did, I wasn't sure if I could re-do the purchase as I would be trying to buy a ticket for a train that had already departed.  I wasn't looking forward to another massive fine if I was found on a train without a valid ticket.  However, the payment did eventually go through and the ticket inspector never showed up anyway!

First stop was the Casa della Muscia, aka the House of Sound.  It is a museum devoted to the development of radio (heavily featuring Marconi) and also records/discs.  Marconi was actually Sicilian but spent a lot of his life in Parma.  They had a room where there were speakers all around so when they played a piece of music it sounded like you were in the middle of the orchestra.  They also had this massive cone of speakers which were playing sounds like rain on a tin roof or wind in trees.  Depending on where you sat underneath the cone, you heard different sounds.  I like small museums on specific topics.  They are often more interesting that the bigger museums.

Next it was time for lunch.  As it was a lovely day (25C) the place was full of tourists.  After getting turned away from several places I settled on the Ristorante La Filoma.  The dining areas of this restaurant are in two rooms on the ground floor of a palazzo.  They don't have any tables outside and the door into the restaurant itself is off a hallway into the palazzo rather than on the street.  It isn't obvious it open or even there.  When I arrived at 12:30pm I was the only diner there.  

I was given a table in the back room and for a menu I was given a scruffy piece of paper with a QR code on it.  The place started to fill up around 1pm, but with people who'd booked in the front room and random people off the street in the back with me.  The service was fine at the start, but started to fall apart when the number of diners increased.  Two couples were seated in the room with me.  The couple that came in 2nd were given printed menus immediately.  The 1st couple had to wait 10 minutes before they were given anything.  They also asked for an extra 2 minutes to make up their minds to order, which was a mistake as they were given 15.  The best was when an little, old man in scruffy jeans wandered into the room.  I thought he was a beggar from off the street but he was the sommelier!

I started with a platter of proscuitto and parmigiano reggiano (of course) with a small salad (insalatina) of mixed greens and sliced apple.  Whoever sliced the apple forgot to take the sticker off first.  They were very apologetic.  I was amused.  For main I had a plate of Antica Pasta della Filoma which was a pasta made from four different ancient grains.  I was pleased I had it as it was an interesting change from tagliatelle di ragu, but I wouldn't have it again.  I had planned on dessert but I wasn't sure how long that would take (they were full by this point and service was becoming somewhat free-form) so I just had coffee and got gelati for dessert elsewhere.  

After lunch and a restorative gelati (they place I went to didn't have pistachio!) I headed for the Museo Glauco Lombardo.  Maria Luisa Hapsburgh, who was the 2nd wife of Napolean Bonaparte, was made Duchess of Parma after he was exiled to St Elba.  Apparently she was a very popular ruler.  Among many other things, the museum had some of her dresses.  She was taller than Napolean (but only about my height) but had the tiniest waist - even allowing for the fact she would have been wearing a corset.

After this musuem I had planned to visit the Teatro Farnese as it is fabulous and apparently looks like this.

However, the was a long queue at the ticket office so I wandered around the Ducal Park for a bit and  just sat in the sun and relaxed.  Unfortunately, when I wandered back to the ticket office the queue was now out the door and around the block.  By this time it was getting on for 5pm and I decided I was museum-ed out.

I headed off to the railway station and amused myself by attempting to understand the announcements while I waited for my train back to Bologna.  All the trains originating in Milan had been delayed for some reason so there were a lot of announcements about how train X was N minutes late and how train Y was now leaving from platform B rather than A.  Plus, all the usual "don't leave bags unattended", "stay behind the yellow line" and "let other people off first".  These were obvious enough but all the others gave me plenty of practice at understanding numbers in Italian.

Tuesday 25th here is a public holiday too - Liberation Day - to celebrate the liberation of Italy from the Fascists.  I'm trying to decide what to do.  Options are visits to either Padova or Verona (although I have zero interest in seeing Juliet's balcony) or going for a hike in the hills around Bologna.  I've downloaded GPS tracks for two hikes - one of 12km and the other of 24km.  The 12km one starts by heading up to the Sanctuary of San Luca which I've already done, however it is a more practical distance.  Must ponder.