Tuesday 20 June 2023
We’ve left Tuscany and are on to the next leg of the tour: Parma and Emilia-Romagna. Our apartment is a neat city-centre place, very good location, kind vintage decor, fierce aircon. In a very Italian style, the owner Francesca showed up 20 minutes late to let us in, but at least seems to give good restaurant recommendations!
Anyway, we squeezed in one more Tuscan day out before we left, to visit San Gimignano. This is definitely the most touristy spot in the Tuscan countryside, judging by the way the huge car parks were almost full when we got there at midday. Having taken a wrong-turn, we found that it was a right-turn because we ended up having a little picnic in the sun on the edge of a vineyard with a great view of the medieval town from a distance.
I can’t blame all the tourists really, because inside the walls San Gimignano really is a perfect medieval hilltop town. It’s stacked with all these astonishing tower houses that the aggressive/nervous Tuscan noblility used to build before the Renaissance republics swept them away. Most look like they only have one or two rooms on each floor but they totter over the town up to eight stories high.
We did actually manage to get away from the crowds, following our noses down some side streets to visit the “medieval well” just outside the town walls on the cool northern side. It was an enchanted spot, with these mirror-like pools of inky water surrounded by delicate ferns and mosses.
Anyway, 3-4 hours driving through the maritime Alps and the flat Po plains took us to Parma. It’s baking here. Feels like a nice city. We walked all of fifty yards to our first evening meal, at La Greppia which is a super-traditional restaurant. Feels like we’ve already tried half of the specialties of the region: big puffy hot torta fritti, fried polenta, chunks of strong salty-crumbly Parmesan with sticky balsamic vinegar on top, little filled capelleti in brodo (in broth) and beautiful fresh maltagliati pasta with a duck and orange ragu. Just as with every single meal we’ve had on this trip: seriously no room to even contemplate dessert!
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