Bologna Day 4 (Parma)

Another day, another side trip! But first, I think we actually found good flaky pastry in Bologna! Yesterday afternoon we dropped by Impero Bar Pasticceria Bologna and took home a few pastries for breakfast today. They were pretty darned good. We got a plain croissant, chocolate cream croissant and what I call a pain au nutella.

Not too much hanging about this morning. We get ourselves ready for our 9:46 train to Parma! Last time we took the train to Modena we got to the station just a few minutes before so we left early to give ourselves some wiggle room. Well...turns out that wasn't necessary. Our train is delayed by 52 minutes. Just seems we can't win with these trains. It's always something...All these trains are making me miss the Asian train system. Desperately.

Since I'll be transferring to the Marconi Express at Bologna Centrale to get to the airport, we use the time to locate that train while we're here. That probably takes all of five minutes then we're back up at the platform. What to do, what to do. Ah look! Our platform changed! Quick note if you ever take trains in Italy: always make sure to check the platform number. Constantly. It can change at the last minute, or early enough like this does.

Back down the stairs we go and walk over to the next platform to wait some more. The train finally arrives and we hop on without issue.

It's an easy 50 minutes to one hour from Bologna to Parma (depending on the train), with stops at Modena and Reggio Emilia along the way. We took the InterCity train which is sort of between the Freccia (high speed) and Regional (all the stops) train, and took us about 50 minutes.

Our train venture wouldn't be complete with some issue, delay notwithstanding. We think this is the same train we were on to Modena the other day because the doors in our car weren't working...again. So we scramble to get to the next car and get off before the train departs the station. Thankfully we make it.

Now to enjoy Parma! It's an overcast day today which keeps the temperature down - that sun can be brutal.

We meander for a little but since our train was an hour late the stomachs are saying it's lunchtime. So we make our way towards today's lunch spot - Il Cantiere del Borgo. Cool, casual place with fun style to the menu.

Most restaurants we've looked at have very similar menus, which include the traditional Bologna dishes - and there's nothing wrong with that! But since we've had a few days of similar cuisine we decided to change it up with hamburgers! And oh my gosh are we happy we did! These were some of the best, if not the best, burgers we've had. They were fantastic. We ordered the Parma and Copenhagen, both with beef patties (they didn't ask but the patties were cooked well done and still tender!). The Parma has arugula, prosciutto and Parmesan cream. The Copenhagen has tomatoes, lettuce, bacon, cheese, carmelized onion and ketchup. We were in heaven. Even the "chips" (fries) which were in a shape I'd never seen before, were some of the best I ever had. Absolutely delish.

And dad got a salad. How healthy.

After a fantastic lunch, we head out in search of meat! Cured meats, of course. One particular store, La Prosciutteria is a meat-lover's paradise.

None of the meats tickle our fancy so we head towards the Parmesan store - Casa del Parmeggiano Reggiano. Like La Prosciutteria for meat-lovers, this is a cheese-lover's paradise. They carry Parmesan ages 14 months to 100 months.

Mom was in cheese heaven. The guy behind the counter was cutting into a fresh wheel of Parmesan and they both got into it on cutting wheels since she did the same thing at Whole Foods. It was pretty cute. He was very jealous she's retired. I am too.

We couldn't leave without getting some Parmesan from Parma, so two bricks just over 1 kilo each made their way home with us!

After securing our stake in Parmesan, we now meander the streets a bit. It's a quiet Monday in Parma. Restaurants are open but most shops are closed today.

And as always, we find ourselves at a gelateria! Mom likes the affogato al caffe at Grom so we visit here again.

Mom got affogato al caffe with gianduia (chocolate hazelnut) gelato and I ordered a small cup (piccolo coppa), but ended up with what seems like a medium portion in a cone. I won't turn this down but definitely got more than I was expecting! I chose fragola (strawberry) and pera (pear). Nice and refreshing.

Gelato done, time to head to the train station! We take the...scenic?...route along the...river. I think maybe snow hasn't quite melted yet, the river is quite low. Nevertheless, we continue this way back towards the station.

Back at the train station, we wait for our train. And wait. Come to find out it's late. Because why not? Also as we're waiting for our train, a commercial transportation train comes through as fast as a speeding train, literally. It scared the bejesus out of us! I looked down the track and saw in incoming train so thought maybe this was ours. Then I realized it wasn't showing down. At all. Quickly stepping back to the middle of the platform, mom does the same, and the train comes barreling down the tracks at full speed. I was afraid the vacuum of air from the train would pull us toward the train! That was an extremely unnerving experience and seems completely unsafe for the train to be going that fast. Most of the pedestrian trains go very slow thru the stations. To our surprise, this happens three more times! I finally caught a video of the last one although it wasn't going nearly as fast as the first two.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/44c600_5aac8fa4084a4c8d845981662deffb12/360p/mp4/file.mp4

After that interesting experience, our train finally arrives. We're in car two so we head towards that car and as we're walking over we hear the whistle for the train to depart. Oh dear! Mom was further ahead so dad and I hop onto whatever car what in front of us, I think it was car three. We totally lost track of mom so hope she made it into the train! They must be making up for lost time because they didn't wait for any stragglers at all. We catch up with mom at the snack car - thank goodness she made it in board! - and walk to our car and seats.

Thankfully the rest of the ride is completely uneventful. Phew! This ride is a little longer, about just over an hour, although it has the same stops as the route going the other direction.

Safely back home, mom and I head back out to pickup pizza from the same place as the other night - Pistamentuccia. Flavorful options tonight again!

From left to right: anchovy and marinara with tomatoes and basil, eggplant Parmesan

From left to right: salami with ricotta and tapenade, pesto with mozzarella and tomatoes, speck

Very delicious for our last night in Bologna! Onward to our next destination tomorrow.

Ciao!