Parma - No Ordinary Ham and Cheese

Day 12 (15 May 2025)

Today, we're going on a food tour of Parma, which required us to take a one-hour train ride from Bologna to Parma. We were waiting on the wrong platform as we didn't realise that Bologna Centrale station has four different wings for different types of trains, and some have repeated numbers. Fortunately, Andre spotted the mistake in time 😅.  

This day trip was the highlight for Andre. Parma exclusively produces two items that he loves - Parmigiano Reggiano (a special parmesan cheese) and Prosciutto di Parma (better known at home as Parma ham). Clearly he's not the only Singaporean to think so cos the guide said 90% of his Asian participants are from Singapore. Yes, we do love food! 😋

Parmigiano Reggiano is a DOP product meaning the raw materials, process and packaging can only be from the specified  region (similar to how champagne can only be produced from the specific Champagne region in France, nobody else is allowed to use that label). The making of Parmigiano Reggiano was started 900 years ago when monks didn't want to waste excess milk. 

Here, you can see the cheese is made in these huge copper vats that extend beneath the floor. Each lump of cheese in a vat has to be cut into two and each of those will eventually form one wheel. Even today, the whole process is incredibly labour-intensive, from the adding of the whey, cutting of the cheese, wrapping, flipping it and so on. 

 

The cheese is then drained, placed into a mold. The linen has to be changed and the cheese is soaked in brine.  

 

Each wheel of cheese is about 40kg and branded with its own QR code so you can check all the details of when and where it was made, what was added to it, etc. It's like the cheese's own personal ID!

Once the wheels are ready to be removed from their containers, they're stored in this massive warehouse to age. If you don't like the smell of cheese, you will pass out here 😆 The best cheeses are aged for 24-36 months. During that time, the cheese needs to be regularly cleaned to prevent mould and inspected to make sure it passes the grade. There are a gazillion other steps which I've missed out because I can't remember them all. I only know it sounds like a heck of a lot of work to produce cheese. 

And then it's time to taste! It's a cheese-lover's heaven. Sharp and tasty. What I did not know is that Parmeggiano Reggiano is lactose-free, like with most hard cheeses. This is because of the probiotics that's added to the cheese and over time, by about one year, it would be lactose-free. Good news for all the lactose-intolerant (including Andre!) 

Next, we visited the Prosciutto factory which was just down the road. Once again, I was struck by how laborious the curing process was. The legs have to come from certain breeds of pigs and weigh about 160kg. It needs to be salted, rested, washed, dried and cured in a controlled environment for at least 400 days. 

After that, an inspector will come to inspect every single leg for flaws or spoilage. If the leg passes the test, he will brand it and only then can the leg be called Prosciutto di Parma. 

The factory we visited is run by 73-year-old Claudio and his wife. Despite breaking two ribs in an accident and told by his doctor to retire, he continues to work. He personally sliced the Prosciutto for us today. Now that's passion!

Here, Andre is complimenting Claudio on the quality of the Prosciutto. Because it is sublime. We've had Parma ham in Singapore but not like this - when it's freshly cut, it's silky smooth and the fat just melts in your mouth 😍 We ate our fill of this (all the while ignoring my doctor's voice nagging in my head about my salt intake!) We were even offered Lambrusco (an Italian sparkling red wine) to go with it. The perfect pairing.

After the tour, we had some time to spare so we explored the Parma historical centre. Parma is very pretty and feels like a peaceful residential area, less gritty than Bologna. 

 

The Pilotta Palace is an imposing place that today houses a theatre, art gallery, museum and library.

We were walking around quite aimlessly and came to a lovely park. Against a bright blue sky, the canopies look like they're arranged for photography! Andre made an observation that all the parks we've been to have mostly been green. Just wondering why - Italians don't favour flowers?

 

 

Found a shady, unoccupied bench in the park and did a quick sketch. Added the watercolour back at the hotel. This is the final coloured version - I do like it despite being mostly green 💚 

We walked back to the train station and had yet more time to spare, so we had a drink at a cafe next door.  

On this trip, Andre had developed a love for coffee, something he'd shunned before (Italy's reputation for being a coffee country is not unfounded!)

Then it's a train ride back to Bologna. How cute is Parma's train station?

Back in Bologna, we decided to chicken out (hurhur) and have KFC for dinner. The automated ordering kiosk confused us somewhat...because chicken pieces are not the main items here but hidden under a small item. They have chicken burgers, chicken nuggets, chicken tenders..everything except chicken. It took us a long time to figure out that you can only order a two-piece chicken set under COB (which we assume stands for the Original Recipe). It's all very strange to us. And there are something like 15 different sauces (including olive oil) which you had to pay to add to your order. If you order mashed potato, it comes plain. 

 

To be honest, the chicken was greasy, soggy and salty (though the mash was very good). Not the best KFC around. But the redeeming feature is that they have mini pistachio and caramel sundaes here 😁  

 

Bologna - City of Porticos

Day 11 (14 May 2025)

Today, we made our way to Bologna by train. We checked into our hotel at Amendola 16. It's a hotel that's conveniently located right across Bologna Centrale (the main train station). I chose this place because we're using Bologna not as a sightseeing spot but more as a hub to travel out so being near the train station is a huge plus.

The hotel room is large, clean and comfortable. The wifi is fast and there's Netflix! There's no reception desk but that's ok cos I got responses to my questions very quickly via WA. The only downside is the lift which again has manual doors and if someone either downstairs or upstairs didn't close the doors properly, the lift wouldn't work. The hotel is on the 3rd level so if you have luggage, that's a little inconvenient.

After we checked in, we walked around Bologna's city centre. First thing we noticed is all the arched covered walkways everywhere. Later, we discovered they're called porticoes and the porticoes in the city centre itself cover up to 40km, more than any other city in the world. In fact, the porticoes of Bologna are a UNESCO heritage site! 

Many of the porticos are very ornate with the family crests of nobility who sponsored them. 

This is Bologna's Love Lock Bridge. There used to be more canals throughout Bologna but few are left as people favoured roads.

In the middle of the main square is the Basilica of San Petronio which was never completed. Work started in 1390 and it was going to be humungous with the perimeter in the shape of a cross. But it dragged on a couple of hundred years until the Pope realise it would be bigger than the Vatican Church and ordered work to stop. To this day, it is left unfinished hence the asymetrical marble facade.  

I guess you can see from the inside when they decided to stop work 😂 

We also passed by the Fountain of Neptune. This was commissioned by a Cardinal in the 16th C to show his powerful alliance to the Pope via marriage but the story goes that the artist deliberately designed the fountain to be a little naughty to mock him. (Not sure if you can see in the photo but around the base of the fountain are four sea nymphs holding their ta-tas and water is squirting out of them 🧐

The trident of Neptune is the logo of Italian race car brand Maserati.

Bologna is known as the learned city because it's home to the oldest university in the world, from 1038. We never got around to visiting the university but we passed by a really cool bookshop.

 

Only in Italy can you find designer label highlighters 😆

 

Maybe this is unfair but after the grandeur and epic culture of Rome and Florence, Bologna feels like a poorer cousin. I personally found the city to be grittier and less friendly. There's also a lot of graffiti everywhere (like on EVERYTHING, as if there's a graffiti addict who goes out every night looking for any empty spot to express his neon dreams) which gives it a run-down feel. Bologna is less touristy and for the first time on this trip, I feel like we stick out as there are very few Asians here.

We tried a couple of Bologna specialities for lunch - passatelli (a pasta I've never seen) in broth and a Bolognese veal cutlet. Didn't take to both. Honestly, the former tasted like someone just dumped boiled pasta into Swanson's chicken broth, and the latter we expected Bolognese sauce - you know that tomato based sauce in spaghetti bolognese? But this one was covered in some cream sauce that managed to achieve the incredible feat of tasting both bland and salty at the same time. And the veal cutlet was hard and chewy. 

Sorry if this offends anyone, but we completely don't understand how Bologna can be considered the food capital of Italy 🤷 Perhaps we went to the wrong restaurant or ordered the wrong items, but this restaurant had lots of good ratings. The food wasn't cheap either, and the service was surly. 

We did have great gelato though. So far the food in Italy has been underwhelming. But the desserts and gelatos have been the saving grace! 

After the uninspirational lunch, Andre and I didn't feel inclined to go out for dinner, so we ended up just buying fruit and juice from the supermarket and vegging out in front of the TV watching Oppenheimer. Sometimes, simple is best 💜