Postcards From Across the Pond

Day Three – Parma ham and Vinegar

Parma: a lot of history and cathedrals, but I’m only here for the ham.

Friday, the 4^th of July, we went to Parma. It was a long trip, but the bus had air conditioning and comfortable seats, so it wasn’t bad. It was also the first time we were properly introduced to our tour group. They are scattered throughout the city, and our hotel is the closest to the lake. Fortunately, the others seem happy with their locations, but that’s only because they don’t know what they’re missing.

In Parma, it was stiflingly hot, and our city guide had to keep finding shade for us to stand in. She was a good guide witha gooda Englisha skillsa (which I am not going to make fun of because she speaks better English than I do Italian) but she tried to capsulize the long and complex history of Italy, flinging dates and names at us, but it all went over our heads. It’s just too much of a mess. English history is no less convoluted, but it’s more familiar.

In simple language: The Roman Empire dissolves. City-sized Thugdoms arise and continually wage war with each other, resulting in regional-sized Thugdoms that wage continual war with each other, and eventually form countries that continually wage war with each other.

On our tour, we saw a church. I have seen many churches, so I was not prepared to be impressed, but it was, without a doubt, the most ornate church I have seen to date. Then she took us to a Post Office that looked like a grand cathedral; ours is in a W H Smiths, and the original, decidedly unimpressive building, is now a charity shop.

Our tour ended at a restaurant where all thirty-something of us sat outside, under an awning, with a fan blowing water vapour at us. It was nice, however, and we got to chat with our fellow-travellers while having a lunch of Parma ham, parmesan cheese, bread and wine—all on the house.

After lunch we travelled to a farm where they make, arguably, the world’s best balsamic vinegar. I say “arguably” because if you disagree that their balsamic vinegar is the best in the world, I expect they will argue with you. The tour, however, was fascinating, and the product was amazing. We bought a bottle, naturally. And I forgot to take a single photo.

After that it was an hour and a half trip back to base. Four of us—minus Sally, who had struck out on her own (quite adventurous is our Sally)—went to dinner and had a nice chat and returned to our rooms at a reasonable time. So reasonable, I decided to have a beer and cigar on the roof garden, and Sadie joined me with another carafe of wine (she likes a drink, does Sadie).

We got talking and—fuelled by many glasses of wine—she delved deeper into her life story, and it turns out she’s batshit crazy. I am, however, on holiday, she’s good company, tells amazing stories, keeps her crazy under wraps in the larger group and, after this week, I never have to see her again. So, yeah, have another drink, Sadie, and what were you saying about that time in the biker bar in Canberra?

Day Four – Free Day

Today, the fourth day in this hotel room, we finally figured out how to turn off the bathroom light. It’s been on since we got here, and we could not figure out how to turn it off, so we shut the bathroom door at night to block the light and muffle the sound of the exhaust fan. We shared this with the group, and Sadie told us she could not turn her bathroom light on. But today she finally figured it out, let us in on the secret, and now we can turn ours off. It’s obviously a state secret, so if you visit and stay in our hotel, you’ll have to figure it out on your own.

This was our Free Day, so, with the bathroom light extinguished, my wife and I walked to the nearby town of Bardolino. Once there, we found an outdoor café and were enjoying a fine cup of coffee when the wind suddenly picked up and people scurried to tie up boats, batten down hatches, and furl umbrellas. The big awning over us was taken down while we were sitting there, and the wind became so strong it was in danger of blowing the coffee out of my cup. We gulped the coffee and headed home, through the wind, rain, and thunder.

Along the way the lightening drew nearer, to the point where it was cracking overhead as we arrived at the hotel. Very exhilarating. We got in, looking like drowned rats, changed and went to sit in the lobby.

Due to the rain, we had lunch in the hotel, and ended up sitting with Sadie and Ellie-Mae (Sally had gone to ride on the cable car that goes up the mountain at the side of the lake this morning, and since no one has seen her all day, we can’t be certain she survived) and then had a lie down. When we woke up, the sun was shining, and the heat had returned, and everything—except our trainers—had dried out.

My hat—the one I bought in Cyprus in 2017—did not fare well in the wet, so I bought a new one in the marketplace, now that the shops, the stalls, the restaurants, and the ice cream parlours were all back up and running at full capacity.

I’m still struggling to get enough change so we can use the public loos. Everything seems to be priced at €5 or €10, and even if I do manage to buy something for, say, eleven euros, I’ll get a five-euro note and two, two-euro coins (useless as far as public loos are concerned) in return. After buying a new handbag (my wife), hat (me), bell (for a friend), and ice cream cones (for both of us), and paying for all of it in cash, I came away with a single one-euro coin. We’ll have to toss it to see who gets to use the loo when the time comes.

In the evening, the five of us went to dinner again, and followed the same pattern as always: the lakefront is solid restaurants, they all serve the same thing—pasta, pizza, fish, meat—and they all have a magnificent view of the lake, yet we walk by one after the other, rejecting or not even looking at them, then stop at one to read the menu, which is the same as every other menu, only to find it lacking in some way. Then, we move on, find another that, for unknown reasons, doesn’t suit, and move on again. We were nearly at the end of the promenade when one of the ladies said, “Why don’t you pick the restaurant tonight, Mike?”

Challenge accepted, I led them back toward the hotel, but before I got to the first restaurant, they had all moved out in front of me and were, once again, leading the hunt. I guess my wife must have warned them that I would simply choose the next restaurant we came to.

So, we stopped, read, rejected, and moved on until the stars aligned or something and we finally settled.

And in that stiflingly hot night, I noticed that the standard uniform for the waitstaff is a white top and black trousers. I don’t know how they stand the heat.

Next: Milan, Venice, and Verona