Gnocchi di patate

Today we had a nice (hot) day exploring Parma some more.

In the morning we walked through town and came across a large street market! It was nice to mingle with the locals and look through stalls of clothes and knickknacks.

Afterwards, we went to visit the Baptistry of Parma. This grand octagonal building is where baptisms of the church take place. Our ticket also gave us a great audioguide so we got to learn about the art and the statues adorning this building.

Outside the baptistry

The baptism pool

Inside, there are 12 statues representing the months of the year. These were quite fun to look at and see what the months used to be associated with. For instance, July is represented by a man grinding wheat with horses and August by a man building a barrel in preparation for making wine.

August (left) and July (right)

The inside of the dome is also painted with beautiful frescos.

Beautiful fresco dome

For lunch, we went to a highly recommended restaurant called Trattoria Corrieri. This traditional Italian place is tucked away in a little alley but is quite big! It was full of locals and tourists alike and we were so happy to get a seat.

Cooks in the kitchen making pasta

For appetizers, I got a pickled vegetable salad while Liam got some torta fritta (a traditional fried bread) Both were ridiculously good and left me full before we even got to the main course.

Pickled vegetable salad and torta fritta

Then the main came and I forgot I was full. My dish was potato gnocchi with anchovy salsa, date confit, and burrata… oh my goodness it was so good! So filling too, I spent about 30 minutes eating my dish. Liam got the highly recommended tagliatelle with ragù which apparently was quite good too!

Gnocchi and tagliatelle!

In the late afternoon we went home to hide from the heat, then we went out again in the evening to say goodbye to Parma. Our first stop was La Prosciutteria, a famous local deli shop. Here we got some little salads for dinner, and Liam got to try some prosciutto.

Fantastic little deli shop

After, we walked down to the Parco della Cittadella a large green space just outside of the city centre. This park is very cool as it’s built on the site of a 16th century pentagonal fortress! I really enjoyed walking around here in golden hour. The park was full of people jogging, working out, playing basketball and walking their cute dogs.

Entrance to the park

Lovely green space

On the walls of the fort

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