Let Them Eat Cheese

Shannon O'Leary
Apr 28, 2017
3 min read

Our last school sponsored trip was this past weekend for a tour of Parma: Culture, Cuisine, and Music. Located in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, Parma was but one stop on our delicious journey.

This area of Italy is known for a few things including: proscuitto di Parma, Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese, wine, and torta fritta, etc.

Our first stop was Cremona. The brief visit included a tour of the center of the city by a professor at our school who is from Cremona. We had free time for lunch before visiting the Violin Museum featuring art, interactive exhibits, and lots and lots of violins including many Stradivarius violins. I did not hear anyone call a viola a violin so I consider the visit a success....in addition to seeing all the beautiful instruments and how they are made of course. Cremona is still known for its incredible violins and the small provincial city was lovely to spend the afternoon in.

We returned to the buses and finished our journey to Parma where we indulged in a multi course meal at Trattoria Corrieri (where we were introduced to torta fritta, a savory fried dough pillow thing). Two and a half hours later we all headed back to the hotel to prepare for our early wake up call.

The walking tour of Parma was also done by a professor who lived in the city. It was one of my favorite tours throughout the entire semester. Our guide knew all the little facts and was well paced and interesting.

Afterward we enjoyed some free time to eat lunch and explore the city. The evening was our most endurance based activity of the trip. A twenty minute bus ride took us to Torrechiara Castle, a beautifully preserved and off the beaten path building with an amazing view of the country side. It was here we began our vineyard tour and learned about the neighboring vineyard, how wine is made, and the history of the farm itself. We were brought to the vineyards restaurant where we were treated to wine tasting and dinner. Note: not traditional wine tasting, more like 4 full bottles of different wines to accompany our dinner.

Four hours of hand made pasta, hand cooked meat, baked bread, dessert, and of course wine, later I was stuffed and sure I would never eat again. Five, seven courses of food?

Also imagine 100 drunk college kids to bus back, snaps to the IES staff for that.

Our last day involved a trip to Modena to tour a balsamic vinegar factory and a final meal at their restaurant. I had not known about balsamic vinegar but in a nut shell there are two main kinds: one that is only made with fruit of grape and another that is half fruit of grape and half wine vinegar. Balsamic is aged in barrels that come in different sizes. Every year the balsamic is moved into another, smaller barrel. The smaller the barrel, the older the balsamic.

The country side of the Emilia-Romagna is stunning and was a great subject for many photos. Lunch was, as expected, delicious, hand made from scratch, and I have never tried so many different kinds of balsamic before, ever.

Now, cheese.

Our last stop was the Parmesan Cheese factory about 40 minutes away from the vineyard. Props to our factory tour guides who came in to work just to give us the tour. The process was interesting to learn about, as was the fact there are only 3 ingredients to their cheese, all natural. Incredible.

At this point, however, everyone had reached peak fun and groggily returned to the buses to start our journey back to Milan.

I recommend Parma and the Emilia-Romagna region to anyone getting to travel to Italy. While we think of sun and coast and pasta when it comes to Italy this region is truly a treasure, especially if you love food.