Sofitel Parma Grand Hotel Ville

... aback by the sounds, and just allowing youself to wallow in the sound as it hammers into your soul. Trapsing home that night, and crashing into bed. This was the latest night I have been out for my entire trip! No wonder I woke up with a cold! Nevertheless....<br><br> I've gained quite a different perspective on how it must be for my parents (and aunts and uncle), as I spent the better half of the weekend sitting beside people I could not speak to ...

... and beautiful. I could have spent all day doing that, but the boys got bored so we decided to go into town. It was freezing next to the water, but still pretty. I can see why people would want to visit in the summer, but I'm glad I went when I did, when the town was quiet and just the locals were out. We passed a sweets shop, hypnotized by the window display of goodies, and then Luisa went in. In my head someone yelled "YES!" I think it's fat ...

... All tasty and the parmiggano was the best we had ever tried. We finished up and headed for the station, we were done doing what we came here for. We stopped off in Modena on the way home. Modena is the home of Maseratti, Ferarri and Ducatti motorbikes and is also the place that most of the balsamic vinegar in the world comes from. They had a church, it was fancy. They didn't let us take any pictures.<br>

... and did a little shopping. On our way out of Parma we stopped at an Ikea yippee! (Where I accidentally set off an alarm by going out of the wrong door). We spent the evening at the apartment and said goodbye to Lorelei and Arthur. As a side note not sure if I mentioned this earlier you might want to ask David how the womens restrooms are in Verona and Parma haha

... boarded the plane and removed the sick passenger. We then refueled and were able to leave Detroit about an hour behind schedule. David and I watched &#8220;The Hangover&#8221; (again) and basically had a good flight. We landed in Amsterdam and boarded our flight to Venice with no other problems. We drove from Venice to Reggiolo through some ...

For a nice little day trip, Zoe and I decided to go to one of the main cities in Emilia-Romagna (the province where our father hails from): Parma.<br><br>The city is reknowned for parmesan cheese and Parma ham, or as we call it, prosciutto.<br><br>If you like quaint churches and little shops, this place is great to visit!<br>

... favorite is aged and cured. And yes we ended the tour with tasting some of this delicious ham. Our last stop before heading back to Orvieto was a Balsamic vinegar farm where vinegar is aged in different types of wooden barrels to give each vinegar a distinctive flavor. The oldest balsamic they sell, gold seal,sells for about 80 euros. We did a tasting of the 3 seals, red, silver and gold, which an eye dropper was used to put the balsamic on a spoon because it is so ...

... Bari was very hot and muggy, which was a sign of things to come, and not very pretty so we skipped town. Bambam, Leila, Zeke and Jen went south on a mission to Sicily and Us, Mads and kim went cross country towards Naples.It was there sadly Mads and kim had to leave us on a fast track back to uk as they had run out of time on their holiday and were catching up with some friends back in Scotland. In Naples after a couple nights free camping (which were very difficult due ...

... me. Ok, the internet guy is giving us the high sign, as in high tail your butts out of here. TOmorrow and Sunday is FLorence and Tuscany. Bridget and I will have our first official date, although we have been sleeping together for 2 weeks now, so I guess we are obligated to buy each other dinner. Just kidding, but we are considering this wine and dinner and dancing thing tomorrow night. I am praying all the clothes in Florence are ugly....

... for dinner. It&#8217;s a beautiful spa town and smells good! I took a long walk through the park and had a Gran Marnier on the patio. Peggy had Amaretto which pleased the bartender/host. He didn&#8217;t like my ordering a French liqueur! The hotel was one of the nicest on our tour. <br><br>We left our window open and it was actually cold when we got up!