{"id":1953,"date":"2013-06-01T11:27:26","date_gmt":"2013-06-01T10:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=1953"},"modified":"2026-05-25T06:42:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T05:42:58","slug":"ciao-to-the-mediterranean-were-off-to-the-other-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2013\/06\/01\/ciao-to-the-mediterranean-were-off-to-the-other-side\/","title":{"rendered":"Ciao To The Mediterranean, We\u2019re Off To The Other Side"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the rain stopped, we left the campsite in Levanto and headed up the bendy, twisty road.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The weather really hasn\u2019t been that brilliant down south, or along the Medi, so we might as well see if it\u2019s any better over on the Adriatic, or up north.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We\u2019ve 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.\u00a0 We finally found one, just before the ring road around Parma, and I dashed into the shop while Rodney double parked.\u00a0 The other tricky thing is, you have to know which bread you want and they sell it by the kilo.\u00a0 You don\u2019t seem to buy a whole loaf and sadly when you buy a piece hacked off an enormous loaf,it goes stale very quickly.\u00a0 Hmmm, we might have to review this habit. \u00a0Driving the very straight road from Parma to Reggio Nell\u2019Emilia we half expected to see cheese growing in the fields, but we didn\u2019t even see a cow grazing.\u00a0 We saw a poster of cows grazing, but not a single real one.\u00a0 So we\u2019re not sure where all the milk comes from to make all the parmesan cheese and Parmigiano Reggiano that this area is so famous for?\u00a0 As we approached Modena, the GPS was turned on and we found Camper Club Mutina on the south-western side of the city.\u00a0 It looks more like a car park than a campsite, but we\u2019ve 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\u2019s 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They\u2019re aiming for Greece to try and warm up and have recommended to us a few castles in Germany worth visiting.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Eileens
Eileen’s view across to Vaciglio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Friday 31.5.13 and it\u2019s our 21st<\/sup> wedding anniversary.\u00a0\u00a0 After showers, breakfast and an accidental very early morning phone call to my niece, Rebecca, we set off on our bikes.\u00a0 The campsite is out past the village of Vaciglio and we were aiming for central Modena, unfortunately we accidentally cycled in the opposite direction.\u00a0 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!\u00a0 I knew I was right…..I’m the Navigator.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad the sun was shining and at least we had seen a lovely view of snow-capped mountains along the way.\u00a0 Anyway, the friendly cyclist told us to \u201cturn around, keep going straight, keep going straight, go straight, are you from Melbourne?\u201d;\u00a0 I\u2019m very glad we found him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
Those snow-capped mountains<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

So we cycled back, almost to the campsite, and spotted the bridge that we\u2019d missed.\u00a0 Rodney says it was apparently an accidental 6 kms just to warm us up.\u00a0 Hah!\u00a0 Then we cycled another 4 kms into the centre of Modena, and it was all worth it in the end.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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\u2019t remember them all.\u00a0 The really old balsamics seem to have a lighter but more acidic flavour and they were all delicious with slivers of parmesan.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"We
We only bought three<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 By the time lunch time came around, we weren\u2019t 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.\u00a0 No pasta or pizza today in Italy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Ham<\/dt>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ham seller in the Modena market<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The cathedral was closed for lunch\u2026.for three hours!\u00a0 God knows why the priest needs that long for lunch and why no-one can go in for an early afternoon prayer\u2026..?\u00a0 So to waste some time we found a caf\u00e9 and asked for a hot chocolate and a coffee; both items were on the menu, but I was told “no hot chocolate”.\u00a0 Hmmph.\u00a0 We moved to a big posh caf\u00e9 in the Piazza Grande.\u00a0 We ordered the same again from their menu and got a stunned look from another waitress who again said \u201cno\u201d to the hot chocolate.\u00a0 I’m not sure why, but I got the strange impression that she was trying to tell me that one can\u2019t drink hot chocolate in the afternoon.\u00a0 I was shocked, I was stunned and disappointed, I may leave Italy immediately!\u00a0 However, I don\u2019t want to leave Italy just yet, and Rodney really wanted a coffee, so I ordered a cup of tea instead.\u00a0 Feeling a bit concerned about the matter, I smiled and called over a different waitress and showed her my question on google translate.\u00a0 \u201cAm I unable to order hot chocolate at caf\u00e9s in the afternoon; is it only available in the mornings?\u201d\u00a0 She seemed a bit surprised and said that it\u2019s perfectly ok to drink hot chocolate at any time of the day and couldn\u2019t explain why the waitress said I couldn\u2019t order it\u2026\u00a0 So I\u2019m obviously pointing at menus incorrectly and pronouncing cioccolata calda very badly.\u00a0 I think I\u2019m the accident today.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

\"Market
Market along the Via Emilia Modena with gold naked statues advertising,,,,licorice…..?!!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/dt>\n
<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 When seated in the main nave you cannot see the altar, which seems a rather strange set up for the congregation during a service.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Wandering
Wandering the back streets of Modena<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The bikes were still locked up in the Piazza Grande, so we released them and cycled south.\u00a0 We managed to find the route back to the campsite, probably by accident, and half-way back we stopped off at a huge supermarket.\u00a0 We only needed bread, having left the markets with bags full of goodies, but we couldn\u2019t help but have a bit of a wander around.\u00a0 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\u2019ll definitely be eating well in Eileen, while we\u2019re in Italy.<\/p>\n

So our anniversary dinner ended up being a big salad topped with olives, massive sun-dried tomatoes, prosciutto, Parmigiano Reggiano and balsamic vinegar.\u00a0 We followed up it up with a cream cannoli.\u00a0 Assolutamente deliziosi!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Modena
Modena windows<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the rain stopped, we left the campsite in Levanto and headed up the bendy, twisty road.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Half way up the valley we crossed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8398,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions\/8398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}