Ciao To The Mediterranean, We’re Off To The Other Side

When the rain stopped, we left the campsite in Levanto and headed up the bendy, twisty road.  It is a really lovely drive past all the tiny bunches of pastel coloured villages scattered over the green hills and with lots of pink valerian clinging to the rock walls.  Half way up the valley we crossed a viaduct which opened up a gorgeous view back down over Montale, Levanto and out across the blue Mediterranean.  The weather really hasn’t been that brilliant down south, or along the Medi, so we might as well see if it’s any better over on the Adriatic, or up north.  We joined the autostrada and headed past La Spezia and then turned north on the A15; the heater was switched on to keep us warm.  We followed the road up the Magra Valley, noting the names and lengths of the continual string of tunnels and viaducts as we went. And the rain came down again.  Finally, as the valley opened out, we came off the autostrada at Fornova di Taro and drove the main road up towards Parma, looking for somewhere to buy some bread for lunch.  We’ve got so used to pulling up at the always available boulangeries in any village or town in France, that it has now taken us by surprise at how difficult it is in Italy.  We finally found one, just before the ring road around Parma, and I dashed into the shop while Rodney double parked.  The other tricky thing is, you have to know which bread you want and they sell it by the kilo.  You don’t seem to buy a whole loaf and sadly when you buy a piece hacked off an enormous loaf,it goes stale very quickly.  Hmmm, we might have to review this habit.  Driving the very straight road from Parma to Reggio Nell’Emilia we half expected to see cheese growing in the fields, but we didn’t even see a cow grazing.  We saw a poster of cows grazing, but not a single real one.  So we’re not sure where all the milk comes from to make all the parmesan cheese and Parmigiano Reggiano that this area is so famous for?  As we approached Modena, the GPS was turned on and we found Camper Club Mutina on the south-western side of the city.  It looks more like a car park than a campsite, but we’ve parked with a nice view over some grapevines to the village of Vaciglio. Apparently there is a cycle route into the old centre of Modena that should only be about 4kms long and fairly flat. There’s a good variety of nationalities parked here with us, Italian, French, German, Corsican and another British van pulled in which turned out to contain a couple of Aussies, Tasmanians in fact.  We had a long natter with Frank and Christine, compared their bigger campervan with Eileen and talked about where we had been and where we were headed.  They’re aiming for Greece to try and warm up and have recommended to us a few castles in Germany worth visiting.  The clouds then came over, the temperature dropped and we returned to our own homes to cook dinner, just as the rain came down again.

 

 

Friday 31.5.13 and it’s our 21^st wedding anniversary.   After showers, breakfast and an accidental very early morning phone call to my niece, Rebecca, we set off on our bikes.  The campsite is out past the village of Vaciglio and we were aiming for central Modena, unfortunately we accidentally cycled in the opposite direction.  When I finally became adamant that we were heading in the wrong direction and stopped a passing cyclist for directions, we discovered that we had gone about 3kms south east, when we should have been travelling north west, doh!  I knew I was right…..I’m the Navigator.  I’m glad the sun was shining and at least we had seen a lovely view of snow-capped mountains along the way.  Anyway, the friendly cyclist told us to “turn around, keep going straight, keep going straight, go straight, are you from Melbourne?”;  I’m very glad we found him.

 

 

So we cycled back, almost to the campsite, and spotted the bridge that we’d missed.  Rodney says it was apparently an accidental 6 kms just to warm us up.  Hah!  Then we cycled another 4 kms into the centre of Modena, and it was all worth it in the end.  There was an international food market in full swing along the Via Emilia, the old Roman road that cuts straight through the centre of the city.  We nibbled on everything offered, olives, sun dried tomatoes, rock hard liquorice, biscotti, cheese, savoury biscuits and spoonsful of balsamic vinegar in all sorts of flavours; apple, berry, orange, in fact I can’t remember them all.  The really old balsamics seem to have a lighter but more acidic flavour and they were all delicious with slivers of parmesan.

 

 

We then accidentally stumbled on a very good indoor food market where the cherries enticed us to buy them and we finally bought a huge block of top quality Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, and it is delicious.  By the time lunch time came around, we weren’t really very hungry for a posh anniversary lunch, so when we spotted an Argentinian food stall selling hunks of barbecue beef in chunks of French bread with frites on the side, we both fancied it.  No pasta or pizza today in Italy.

 

 

The cathedral was closed for lunch….for three hours!  God knows why the priest needs that long for lunch and why no-one can go in for an early afternoon prayer…..?  So to waste some time we found a café and asked for a hot chocolate and a coffee; both items were on the menu, but I was told “no hot chocolate”.  Hmmph.  We moved to a big posh café in the Piazza Grande.  We ordered the same again from their menu and got a stunned look from another waitress who again said “no” to the hot chocolate.  I’m not sure why, but I got the strange impression that she was trying to tell me that one can’t drink hot chocolate in the afternoon.  I was shocked, I was stunned and disappointed, I may leave Italy immediately!  However, I don’t want to leave Italy just yet, and Rodney really wanted a coffee, so I ordered a cup of tea instead.  Feeling a bit concerned about the matter, I smiled and called over a different waitress and showed her my question on google translate.  “Am I unable to order hot chocolate at cafés in the afternoon; is it only available in the mornings?”  She seemed a bit surprised and said that it’s perfectly ok to drink hot chocolate at any time of the day and couldn’t explain why the waitress said I couldn’t order it…  So I’m obviously pointing at menus incorrectly and pronouncing cioccolata calda very badly.  I think I’m the accident today.

 

 

When the Duomo opened at 3:30pm we tagged on to the end of a German pensioners tour group, but having no idea what they were talking about, we wandered off around the very different layout of the big Romanesque building; the crypt is almost at ground level and the choir and altar are up on a level above it.  When seated in the main nave you cannot see the altar, which seems a rather strange set up for the congregation during a service.

 

 

The bikes were still locked up in the Piazza Grande, so we released them and cycled south.  We managed to find the route back to the campsite, probably by accident, and half-way back we stopped off at a huge supermarket.  We only needed bread, having left the markets with bags full of goodies, but we couldn’t help but have a bit of a wander around.  We have definitely decided that the quality of the meat, fruit and veggies on sale in the shops and the markets are far superior to anywhere in France, so we’ll definitely be eating well in Eileen, while we’re in Italy.

So our anniversary dinner ended up being a big salad topped with olives, massive sun-dried tomatoes, prosciutto, Parmigiano Reggiano and balsamic vinegar.  We followed up it up with a cream cannoli.  Assolutamente deliziosi!