Day 34: This Is What We've Been Training For

So long rugged Sardinia, buongiorno Parma!

Emilia Romagna is basically my food paradise. Known for Parma Prosciutto, Parmigiana Reggiano, Balsamic Vinegar, Pasta and Lambrusco, I was mentally and physically ready for this. It's what I had been training for.

After driving to Olbia in Sardinia, and FINALLY seeing flamingos (unglamorously loitering next to a petrol station) we got to Milan airport where to hopped into yet another Fiat 500 to drive down to Parma.

Finally... Flamingos! 

This time we were staying at a chain hotel – Ibis Styles – which was a bit of a change from all of the little boutique places we'd been staying at for the last few months. With garish yellow sheets, and a view over the "river" (there was no water there at this time), this would be our home for the next three evenings while we ate ourselves silly.

Autogrill! I want to go to the Eataly x Autogrill collaboration restaurant.

To be honest, we were still full from the ridiculousness of yesterday buuuuut we had to stop at a mainland Autogrill. We shared a salad between us which had plenty of bocconcini because cheese.

What a name. What a place. Honestly, there were a few times over the next few hours I thought I would cry with happiness.

We've been so good and not purchased any material goods. Until now. Bialetti was having a sale and for some reason Adam and I love espresso cups, so bought a few on sale. Can't wait to bust them out back in Sydney!

Aperitivo is quite easy to find here, so we ordered a negroni (which ended up being the size of two and a half) and had a few sandwiches.

We read an article saying that you should only go up once (twice max) for food, so we were trying to do the right thing even though everyone else was going mental and loading up their boards with sandwiches. You know what though? With just a small amount of food and a (rather large) aperitif, we were hungry. The Italians are onto something.

I should mention there was this old guy seated near us who was a bit of a legend. He ordered a wine, got himself some sandwiches and then had a whole platter of cured meats all to himself. We later saw him ordering a gelato at Grom and then walking off into the sunset.

La frutta. Is that right? I'm trying to learn Italian on Duolingo. It says I am 7% fluent in Italian but I think it's lying to me because I can't say much at all except for "Io ho una banana." Which, to be honest, I'm not even sure is right, or a sentence I'll even use in real life. It's kind of like when I learnt German in high school and we learnt how to say "where is my hamburger?".

Parma is quite small so it's pretty easy to get anywhere. We were hoping for Enoteca Fontana to open (on the right) for their €1,40 wines but they were closed on Mondays.

We found a wine bar down the road (Tabarro) and had a drink before heading to Gallo D'Oro for dinner. Which, conveniently, was a 15 metre walk.

Of course we had to have lambrusco. This was more like sparkling rosé and may have got us more than a little tipsy (I also blame the mega negroni and the pre-dinner wine).

The cheese bowl! I wanted to buy one but upon thinking about it further, realised I would never actually use it. How cute is it though?

Eating Parma Prosciutto (among other meats) in Parma. This is a look of happiness.

Tortelli (large tortellini)  is a thing in this region, so we had to get some. This dish showcases three kinds – herbs, pumpkin and ricotta, all doused in butter and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

Heading downstairs to the bathroom, you can walk past this cellar where they store the meats.

This place was super busy so we wanted to check it out. Emilia Cremeria made fresh gelato and see those taps on the left? They were chocolate taps where you can choose dark or milk chocolate to fill your cone with.

Okay, so the plan was to get one gelato cone to share between us. Drunkeness and lost in translation-ness, meant we unintentionally ordered two large ice creams with three to four flavours. Things could have been worse. I got pistachio (it's my base flavour which I measure all gelato places off), strawberry and milk flavour. It was all so good and, in the words of Homer Simpson, I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

Just a coupla kids with more gelato than they expected.