Venice
We started the day driving back to Florence to catch a train to Venice, and I believe Phil was more than happy to hand over the rental car and leave the crazy Italian drivers to themselves. We arrived in Venice and caught a private boat to our AirBnB in Venice that is right on the Grand Canal. We did some light site seeing and dinner in the rain because tomorrow it is up early and to Parma for our “foodie” day!
Parma
Up and out of our Venice home before the sun to catch a train back down to Bologna where we will be picked up by our tour guide for the day to learn about Parmesean Cheese, Parma Ham (Prosciutto) and Balsalmic Vinegar. This day was by far one of my favorites! We learned a great deal about how the cheese was made but what was most fascinating was the room where they stored the cheese housed $30M in that yummy stuff. After our tour we got to taste 10, 15 aqnd 25 year old chese and to our surprise we liked the 15 year old parmesean better than the others. What I wanted to bring home with me was the absolute fresh, still warm ricotta that they make as a slough off from the parmesean process. It was like ice cream and absolutely divine!!! Our next stop was to Leonardi & Ciardello butcher shop where we were showed around by the owners son Gary (and yes he is very Italian with a very American name!) I think I was happy that today was not the day they got in fresh pig legs as I was told the smell is not all that great – I was also very happy to hear that they do not by law keep the animals being raised any where near where they are slaughtered. We have prosciutto in the US but it is NOTHING like what we tasted here – the meats almost just melted in your mouth. We learned how long and at what temprature and style in which you hang the meat to make it ready for the multiple markets and price points they support. Finally we stopped Agetaia del Bago balsalmic vinegar producer. The place was in a building off of a women’s home the process was fascinating. She stared making balsalmic when she inherited her grandmother’s battery of barrels. All balsalmic is placed in a series of barrels and constantly moves down to smaller and smaller barrels as time passes and evaporation happens. We tried balsalmic made in Oak, Cherry and Juniper, also in varied states of aging and oh man was it good. Once thing that was consistent in all of our stops was how tightly these processes are governed by Italy to ensure both quality and process. It was an amazing day.
Venice Exploration
Back in Venice we are going to spend the day with a tour guide around the city and back streets as well as a ferry ride over to Burano to see the famous lace and colorful homes as well as Murano to visit a glass blowing factory. We started off with a quick breakfast in St Mark’s square and then met our tour guide and learned the amazing history of the city and how it was founded out in the “swamps” to avoid the Vikings and built a city of large wood pylons that were put under the water (where no air made them petrified) and then came the stone and buildings that still stand today. We wondered alleys and were amazed that it is actually several small islands attached by its famous bridges. We then boarded a ferry to go over to Burano to see how they make this world famous lace which we learned is a dying art given that none of the younger generation want to take the time to make these priceless pieces. I bought a very small lace piece that is the skyline of Burano and was amazed that it took 3 ladies to stitch as they have their own specialized stitch they do – so all pieces are literally made by a community. Stopped for lunch and had Cicchetti which are basically small snacks similar to spanish tapas. We boarded the ferry again to head to Murano where we visited a glass factory which at the time were working on these huge very ornate chandelliers. Of course we shopped and of course we spent too much but what an amazing
