Congratulations Georg!!

Georg correctly answered the question of the preceding post, thus proving that he is the only person actually reading what we write… just kidding.

Here is the original picture taken from our speeding car on the highway, (we were in the “slow” lane doing 140kph) when Jen snapped this picture showing the mountains of marble in the background and the mason wholesalers in the foreground handling massive blocks of the stone.

Doesn’t look like they are going to run out any time soon.

Us Overdose

Just in case you are not sick of seeing pictures of us, we found a way of making it easier for you to check out our larger collection of photos. We have added links to our albums in the right margin, which we will keep updated as internet access allows. Cheers!

A Slice of Pisa

Pisa was a two hour drive from Parma, a nice little day trip. We left before any of the cafes opened so by the time we hit the mountains we were in serious need of caffeine. We stopped at the highway rest stop where there was an “autogrille”. Expecting the burned carafe coffee that one would find in a roadside stop at home we were pleasantly surprised when we ended up with a cappuccino and fresh squeezed orange juice. The barrista was happy to serve us and perhaps even happier to be drinking wine from a paper cup at 8:30 in the morning. This country is civilized I tell you.

We arrived in Pisa and made our way to one of the gates to the city. Rounding the corner and entering the gate we definitely had one of those “stop in your tracks and gape shamelessly” moments. The tower is just one of the attractions in the Piazza dei Miracoli (Plaza of Miracles); there is also a stunning cathedral and baptistry all made of marble and set on a lush green lawn.


Of course we couldn’t resist following in the footsteps of millions before us in snapping a couple cheesy shots of us “holding up the tower” or “pushing the tower over”

On our drive back we passed through Carrara, and snapped this shot of the mountains.
Pop Quiz: Why do these mountains appear snowy and the surrounding mountains do not?
It has nothing to do with altitude.
While you ponder, here are a few more pics:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15382&l=2fa69&id=700132588

Quickie

I have 3 minutes on a foreign keyboard for a quick update. We just arrived in Rome and have many updates for you. We have been cave dwelling, volcano climbing, nose blowing (bad sinus cold) and doing marathon train and ferry journeys. We look forward to updating you as soon as we find a good connection here.
Miss you all!
xoxo

Parma -Ham it up and say cheese!

Parma, the city famous for Parmagiano Reggiano cheese and Prosciutto di Parma has become one of the unexpected highlights of Italy so far! If you have little interest in shopping or in food- you might as well stop reading now. On the other hand, if you are in Natalie’s histology class, this might be another welcome break from pseudostratified columnar epithelium. I am going to make two entries for this one starting with shopping.
As Adam and I researched Parma, we discovered that we would need a car if we wanted to see the highlights of Parma. Since we were doing most of our sightseeing on Sunday and Monday we had to pick up the car on Saturday (the pick-up location wasn’t open on Sunday). Here is a simple algebra equation that I ran through my head:
Car = freedom
Sightseeing = Sunday + Monday
Freedom = Saturday + Sunday + Monday
Therefore (Saturday + Sunday +Monday) – (Sunday + Monday) = one free day Saturday
Outlet center nearby + freedom = SHOPPING!!

But I’m afraid it is not that simple…. I have married a man that hates shopping. Fortunately…. ummm I mean unfortunately, Adam lost a shirt somewhere along the way and is down to 2 shirts. Cunningly, I use this to my advantage. “You can buy a new shirt” and “most certainly there will be gadget stores there sweetie”…. SOLD! Just for extra insurance, I give Adam a packing list for the day:
iPod
laptop
book
chocolate

We hit the road in search of an outlet center I had found written about on the web. If it weren’t for GPS we would have never found this place. Unlike our outlets at home (shiny, new, over-advertised, and picked-over with no real bargains to be found), this place was the real deal. A nondescript building tucked away down an unsuspecting country road with the occasional “diffusione tessile” sign as the only hint of it's existence. We got Adam’s tactical shopping out of the way first, quickly finding him a replacement shirt and a nice cashmere sweater. After getting him all settled in with the creature comforts, I hit the BCBG/ Max Azria outlet; rack upon rack of bargains being skillfully picked through by the stiletto clad hardcore shoppers, their signature huge shades temporarily relocated to their heads. (I think Italian women are born with Barbie feet- you know, permanently bent into a high heel position. They wear killer heels everywhere, even exploring Roman ruins!)
Given our limited packing space, the shopping trip was more of an exercise in self control than the fabulous wardrobe revamp that it should’ve been. The next outlet center was pretty much exactly what I described our outlets at home to be. We found nothing to buy but we did have a good ogle at the Lindt outlet and their extensive variety of chocolates (another exercise in self control as we managed to leave without a thing!)
Okay enough retail porn, stay tuned for the really yummy stuff!

You need yesterday’s whey to make today’s cheese.

Histology students, are you still with us? Let's discuss adipocytes- ours have probably grown 30% since we have set foot in Italy (our hepatocytes are another story- is it bad to come home from vacation with ascites?)
Parma’s pride and joy lies in their cheese and ham, so not surprisingly one of the most raved about traveller experiences in Parma is a tour of the factories that produce these products. It seems that one of the few companies that offer such tours is Parmagolosa. Sign us up!
We met our guide bright and early on Monday morning. Expecting Italianglish, we were surprised to be greeted with an English accent! Our guide had just moved back from London where she had worked as a translator.

First stop Parmigiano Reggiano facility. I am going to have to try very hard to keep myself from babbling about this tour too much- I found it positively fascinating! If you want to know more, ask me when we get home and I’m sure I will gush on and on. For now I will keep it to an abbreviated ramble.
We pulled into the parking lot of what looked like a very old stone church. Men were working on the building doing what looked like renovations. Our guide showed us the Holstein cows whose milk is used for the cheese. There are very strict regulations governing all aspects of the cheese production (except sterility- more on that later). If these rules are not followed the cheese cannot carry that esteemed Parmigiano Reggiano designation. The cows get some fancy treatment- mostly pertaining to food and water. They are milked twice a day, the milk from the evening milking is skimmed for the cheese and the morning milk is added whole. Then we moved on to the cheese making area.

Expecting to watch the production through a window or having to don hairnets and gowns to enter, I was a little surprised when we strolled right into the middle of the process through a huge, wide open door. The environment was far more casual than I would have thought, in fact I don’t think the staff would’ve batted an eye if I dipped my finger into one of the large copper cauldrons to have a taste!

There were five of these cauldrons with two young, muscular, Italian men working over them- yes ladies and queens there are pictures- hold your horses!

There are several steps to making the cheese but in short form they go like this:
The milk (as described above) is put in the cauldrons and heated along some of yesterday’s whey.
The rennin (an enzyme from calves stomachs) is added which curdles the milk
The curdled milk settles to the bottom where it is left for 20 minutes
The muscular men lift the curds with a paddle (okay don’t get too excited- there’s no pictures I was busy watching!) and put it in cheese cloth
After a while it gets sliced in half and eventually put in molds
After resting in the molds for the afternoon (yes in the building that is wide open to the elements and bugs) it gets put in a salty brine for about a month.
The cheese then goes to age in a warehouse for three years
The lack of sterility doesn’t seem to be an issue as the Parmigiano consortium (cheese Nazi’s) rigidly test each of thousands of wheels of cheese in the warehouse with a hammer at their one year and three year birthday. (A little aside here: I think Adam has spent too long in Canada- he has an objection to the term “cheese Nazi”- and here I thought I had married a politically incorrect Australian) The substandard cheese has a number of destinies ranging from gratings for cheese blends to animal food depending on the severity of the defect.
This tour blew us away for a few reasons:
-Everything was being done by hand, the only machine we saw was one for flipping the aging cheese in the warehouse once a month- but even that was broken and a man was hand turning them all
-The warehouse- one of many in the region, housed thousands of wheels of cheese (who eats all this cheese?)
-All of this cheese is produced by small family owned dairies- the largest one making only 14 wheels/day. No large corporations here!
-The rules… tons of rules to achieve the Parmigianno Reggiano stamp of approval

After the cheese we moved onto the prosciutto di Parma facility…
The process is modelled after traditional techniques. Basically, the ham legs (all from male piggies because the females are too fat) go through a process of salt curing and massaging to remove most of the moisture. In between curing processes they are rotated between a number of climate controlled rooms that emulate the seasonal temperatures. The prosciutto is also subject to the rules of a consortium (ham Nazis).

Last but not least, we moved on to a winery where traditional balsamic vinegar is produced. Again, this is another very small production facility where everything is done by hand. The vinegar is produced from cooked grape must and is put into a large barrel. There are five successively smaller barrels that get topped up each year from the barrel of the next size up. The result is a very small barrel of thick, syrupy vinegar that has a minimum age of 25 years (the barrel is never completely emptied so the 25 year vinegar ends up mixing with vinegar of up to 80 years old). The oldest vinegar has a large sugar content that masks it’s acidity and it is classically used as a dessert item i.e. on vanilla gelato, strawberries, and cakes. At 85 Euro/ 250 ml, we were grateful to have the opportunity to try a teaspoonful!
Anyone hungry now? We certainly were by the time we finished our tour!

Taking it easy at Lake Como

This will be a brief post as Lago di Como was our place to just lay low and rest for a few days. We picked a great place to do this, a little village overlooking Como far removed from the throngs of tourists 750 metres below. The ride up the cable car or funiculare offered a preview of the spectacular view that we would admire over the next few days. Our hotel had a lot to offer: clean rooms, friendly staff, one of only three restaurants in Brunate, and a million dollar view all on a shoestring budget! Now if only the church right outside our window came with a snooze button for the 7 am bells!
We did manage to descend from our oasis of tranquility (we got itchy feet) to do some exploring. Adam was in gadget heaven when we stopped in to check out exhibits at the Volta museum. Volta was born in Como and invented the battery. Many of the exhibits reminded me of high school science experiments (lots of static electricity stuff). I bet he’s the guy that discovered you can stick a balloon to the wall after rubbing it on your head, funny they didn’t include that in the exhibit!
A quick trip up the lake on a hydrofoil boat brought us to Bellagio, the pretty little village with a big reputation. There were several other beautiful villages along the lake, each of which seem to announce their presence with a palate of pastel colours so as not to get lost in the enormous grey alps that rise up behind them. I almost wish we had jumped off at one of these other villages to explore as they looked just as beautiful and perhaps a little less touristy (if you can get less touristy on Lake Como). The scenery was so great that we decided to take the “slow” ferry back so we could snap some pictures.
That was about all for excitement in Como! Oh- here is something for a frame of reference- we met a man on the funiculare that moved to Brunate with his family and he rents an entire house for 400 Euro/month, that’s about $600 Can or Aus dollars.