Parma, Italy

On March 8th, I went to Parma, Italy with seven other American women. Only two of us are brave enough to drive in Italy (me being one of them), so we each drove a carload down. It doesn't take much to fill a car here. It was a pretty easy drive to Parma - a straight shot down the highway (or autostrada). Plus it helped that one of the women had gotten the address for a good parking garage, so all I had to do was plug it into my Garmin and I was good to go! May I just say, I do fine in the United States without a Garmin, but I would not want to go anywhere I hadn't been in Italy, without one! It's invaluable.

Parma was a very pretty city. The pictures I took don't do it justice, but I'm including them anyway. This picture is of the river that runs through town. Apparently it dries up during the summer, so I figured I'd better take a picture of it with water!

Apartment buildings in Italy are all very different looking. Some are old and dreary, some remind me of tenements in the inner city, and some are kind of cute. I thought this one fell into that category.

I didn't take any more pictures for a while, because we were too busy shopping. The shopping was great! We walked down a couple of streets full of cute shops. We went into a shop that sold nothing but gloves and socks - so many socks! We also went into a couple of shops that sold fun jewelry, scarves (of course), and other fun accessories. My favorite store was a place called Kiko. They sold make up. The prices were more like Cover Girl prices, but the make up was Italian, so it was cooler! We all loved that store. We never even made it into a few of the stores, because they all closed for lunch at 12:30. So maddening!

We went to a great trattoria for lunch. We got some of their fried bread, which was absolutely delicious! It's heavier and not as sweet tasting as a sopapilla, but it puffs up in the same way. I could have just had that for lunch and been happy! The rest of the meal was just as good - Rick Steves recommended a great place!

After lunch we walked to a beautiful park. One of the ladies who had been their before said we needed to go see the giant teapots. We were all assuming they would be prettily painted giant teapots. We were disappointed. As you can see, they were an ugly gray color, and covered with graffiti! Not at all what we were expecting. (And yes, that is me in another picture. The one I took of the teapot by itself didn't turn out.)

After that, we drove home. It was a great day. So far, Parma has been my second favorite city (after Florence). When Kimberly comes to visit in April, we will definitely be taking a day trip to Parma.