Journey Across Italy- Day 9
Day 9- Tuesday December 27th
Florence —> Pisa —> Parma —> Milan
We started our day by going to see the famous statue of David by Michelangelo, located at the Academia Gallery. The Academia is quite small and the David is THE THING to see there although we walked through the other collections as well in about an hour. We had skip the line tickets which I highly recommend as the regular wait was wrapped around the building. The David is quite large and majestic, worth the visit.
After the museum we got in our rental car and headed to Pisa to see the leaning tower. It was actually much cooler than I would have thought- it leans a lot! You can climb the tower for a small fee but it has age and mobility restrictions and frankly I was the only one in our party who was keen to do it so we stayed on the ground and had lunch in the towers shadow.
About halfway between Pisa and Milan lies Parma- home of Parmesan cheese. We thought we’d make a quick little stop and pick some up but it turned out to be a bit of an adventure! On the road off the highway into Parma it became apparent that the detour would be much more out of the way than google maps indicated and we didn’t want to be too late getting into Milan that evening. We pulled over outside the city center into a cheese shop thinking we could just grab som but lo and behold- this cheese shop didn’t sell Parmesan! However the proprietor was very kind and spoke just enough English to communicate that for the best Parmesan we should go to “Araldi".” I looked it up on my phone and it seems to be just a few minutes away so we said thank you and headed there. We began to get worried when we turned down a dirt road into farm country but eventually we saw the sign- Produzione e Vendita. A farm where the cheese was actually made and had a tiny store attached. When we pulled into the drive a little Nona came out from watching her shows and unlocked the shop as she put on her apron. We communicated through pointing and successfully bought 2 huge chunks of parmesan (luckily hard cheese is one of the easiest things to bring back from overseas). On the way back to the highway we almost hit a few deer who were prancing though the countryside dusk but don’t worry, the cheese was safe.
We finished our drive to Milan and stayed at the Doubletree by Hilton. We ate dinner in the lobby and had wine from our favorite region, Valpolicella.
Sights seen: The David at Accademia Gallery, Leaning Tower of Pisa,
Cheese farm and store: Azienda agricola Araldi
Hotel in Milan: Doubletree by Hilton
The Rape of the Sabine Women, plaster cast model, by Giambologna
One of “The Prisoners” by Michelangelo
The main event- David.
Have you ever seen David from the back? Now you have!
Driving through the country on our way to Pisa.
You can see it in the distance!
Entrance if you dare to climb.
I think this picture shows just HOW MUCH it’s actually leaning.
Obligatory, “Holding up the Tower” pic.
Driving to Parma.
“Production and Sale”
The dairy farm. Not pictured: hundreds of cows.
This was the entire store.
The family who makes the cheese. The little woman in the very front center is who sold us the cheese.
