With only two trains to catch it was an easy travel day today to Parma - but we almost mucked it up. There had been an electrical fault and many of the trains were running late. We caught an earlier first train than we had planned (that was running late but still earlier than our scheduled one) and had over 40 minutes until our next one was scheduled to depart. We waited, listening to announcements about delays and platform transfers but ours remained unchanged on the electronic board. With only a few minutes left until our scheduled departure and still no train, Darryl went to enquire. A good thing he did, as our train was sitting at the north end of the platform (not visible from where we were on the same platform in the centre of the station) and we had a mad dash to get on board before it left!

We arrived in Parma at lunchtime- an epicurean city of 190,000 people, famous for it's Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, and ham's. Our only plan for the day was a short outing in the afternoon to the town's Theatre - an unusual building made of wood in 1618. Built to celebrate the visit of a dignitary that changed their schedule and never came to Parma - it was historically only officially used 8 times. On the day we were there it was set up for an orchestra and we could imagine it would be an amazing place for the classical concerts which are now held there. Entry to the attached Gallery was included with the ticket. The gallery building was built by Napoleon's wife who came from Parma and she gifted it to the city. Some of the pieces that caught our eye were some impressive wooden thrones with inlaid timber scenes, a piece by Leonardo de Vinci, and quite a lot of paintings of Madonna and child - many that very oddly had daggers or swords protruding from the chests or backs of other people in the painting.

Our planned outing for our second day in Parma was a 50km bike tour that took in a Parmigiano Reggiano cheese factory, a Culletto ham cellar and lunch at an Italian restaurant and the countryside around Parma. Our guide was great, and we learnt a lot about the cheese and saw how it is made. We had to wear blue plastic protective clothing. Seeing the 14,000 wheels in the cheese storage area was incredible - valued at around 8.6 million Euros. We sampled 3 ages of cheese that were quite different. We then rode further out to a village to see the cured pork. The cellar had a very strong smell of ammonia in the first room. This particular style has the pork leg encased in intestine and a mould grows on the outside. It is specifically aged in cellars because of moistness needed for the mould. We saw different types of ham and salami's in the same cellar too.

For lunch at the onsite restaurant we got to sample all of the meats and salamis that we had seen as well as Parma ham, followed by some tortelli pasta in butter with Parmigiano cheese. We learnt that the different sizes of pasta have different names - Tortello (the largest), Tortelli (med) and Tortellini (the smallest). Dessert was also devine - sabiglioni and a chocolate mousse cake, followed by Italian coffee. Then a return bike ride to the city to work off the calories. A really enjoyable day.

Scott: I liked tasting the cheese.

Darryl: A nice relaxing ride.

Sarah: The room the Ham's were in was really smelly. I liked the 1 year old Parmigiano Reggiano.

April: Good bike ride, good food. The wooden auditorium was amazing.