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Emilia Romagna - Best Food In Italy
"Where's the best food in Italy," I asked. "Emilia-Romagna" is alwasy the answer. Emilia-Romagna, a generally flatish place that straddles the scraggy Po river, stretches out from Rimini on the Adriatic to just southeast of Milan . Boasting not onl good food, bt the home to the icons of Otalian automotive: Ferrari, Maserati and Vespa...I may be incorrect about that Vespa one. That may be Tuscany. It has historic cultural riches as well. Bologna is home to the oldest university in Europe (you should see the grafitti), in Ravenna are some impressive Byzantine mosaics and Parma has not only good food but opera too. There is even a local wine, Nabucco, named after one of his operas. There are castles ranging from the gigantic castle of the Estes in Ferrara to the pocket-sized Rocca Sanvitale in Fontanellato. Emilia-Romagna has a well-deserved reputation for the best food in Italy - parmigiano-reggiano, grana, provolone, aceto balsamic, the classic pressed meats of prosciutto di Parma, capricola, coppa, mortadella, and a great wine that goes with a rich meat: Lambrusco. And then you have the pasta preparations...oh, yeah. Come here with an empty belly. Emilia-Romagna is a great place for the traveler who's not afraid to let culinary riches take precedence over the artistic ones. You can roll from one fine meal to the next, visiting food markets and food production facilities in between. Remember the parmesan cheese (parmigiano-reggiano), the prosciutto di Parma, the balsamic vinegar. Many food products are so intensely local, and so important, that the government has designated denominazione di origine protetta, "DOP," or protected places of origin for them. A DOP item must be completely made, start to finish, within its borders. Parmigiano-reggiano cheese, balsamic vinegar of Modena and of Reggio, prosciutto di Parma, and several other pork products, are all DOP products. Under the aegis of the consortia that supervise their production, you can visit production sites for parmigiano-reggiano, balsamic vinegar, prosciutto. And to get you to the sites, there are official driving routes through their areas of production. These "strade dei vini e dei sapori," literally, "roads of wines and good tasting things," are marked by distinctive brown signs and will lead you through the protected regions in which these and other products are made. You can see the countryside, visit production facilities, eat in local restaurants, and go to shops and markets where the products are sold. If, for some reason, food is not your main focus, don't worry, there's a lot to see. Bologna Bologna, "the learned, the fat, the red," ("la dotta, la grassa, la rossa") for its university, its rich food (think ragu Bolognese just for a start) and, depending on who you listen to, its mellow red buildings or its historic communist sympathies, is noted for its arcaded sidewalks, which make even a rainy day suitable for sightseeing. Start at the Piazza Maggiore and admire the Neptune Fountain - Neptune is currently nude, but the city fathers have a bronze fig leaf in storage that is brought out and applied from time to time, as the sense of public outrage may demand. Walk over to the large University building and look at the memorial to the Bolognese who fell fighting the Germans in 1943 - they didn't wait for the Allies to arrive - and see how young they were, most of them. Next, visit see the church of San Petronio and the wooden anatomy theater in the Archiginnasio Palace. Go to the Jewish Museum. You can't miss the two leaning towers, Asinelli and Garisenda, which symbolize Bologna for many. Even the architecture has a foodie connection: Asinelli, the taller, sets the official standard for the width of Bologna's beautiful tagliatelli, whose width must be 1/12, 270th of its height. And speaking of food, the food markets in the maze of small streets around via Pescherie are every much a cultural attraction as the churches, the university, and the towers, or walk down via Ugo Bassi to the Erbette market. Ferrara In Ferrara, see the cathedral, grander than San Petronio in Bologna, and the Castello Estense, the castle of the Este dukes who ruled Ferrara from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, which sits within a large moat. You'll walk through grim dungeons, handsome ceremonial rooms and ducal apartments, and a roof terrace which was an orangerie said to have inspired Louis XIV. Outside the castle is the weirdest public toilet you've ever seen, a stainless steel room with a sliding door like an elevator. You insert a coin, get in, and while you're in there, the signs will warn you to finish up quickly and leave when the yellow light flashes. You wash up at a long trough, putting your hands under, successively, a soap dispenser, rinsing water, and a jet of warm air. You scuttle out, wondering if you'll come out in the same universe, the door slides shut, and you hear a rush of water as the place hoses itself down. What were they thinking? On the more serious side, as you walk the narrow streets, look for the synagogue, which lists on the front wall those the Nazi's deported and killed, 8,000 and 150, respectively; look at the names, there were whole families. There is also a war memorial, as in Bologna, with pictures of the caduti, or fallen, in the 1943 fighting. Ravenna One word: mosaics. Ravenna was the capital of the Roman Empire in the 5th and 6 th centuries A.D., after the sack of Rome, and under Theodoric, who took Ravenna for the Byzantine, or eastern half of the Roman empire, the church of San Vitale was built. The exterior is solid brown brick, and architecturally interesting, but it's the interior that will take your breath away. Inside are dazzling golden mosaics depicting Justinian and Theodora and Old Testament scenes that anticipate the story of Christ - a common device in Italian churches. When you can breathe again, take another look, and then go to the mausoleum of Galla Placidia, the daughter of Theodosius, the last emperor of the united Roman Empire. Also be sure to see the church of San Apollinaire Nuovo, with more mosaics. If you're of a literary turn of mind, visit the tomb of Dante. Parma The Baptistery and Duomo are two of the main sights in Parma - the duomo, like San Vitale and San Apollinaire Nuovo in Ravenna, has a gallery of New Testament scenes above a gallery with the Old Testament scenes that prefigure each. There is also the Civic Museum, in the Palazzo della Pilotta, with permanent and temporary art exhibitions, and an impressive wooden amphitheater that was, on occasion, flooded so that naval battles could be re-enacted in miniature. Equally interesting, you can walk around the outside of the amphitheater to see how it was constructed. Just walk around and soak up the feel of the place, have a gelato and do some people-watching in the Piazza Garibaldi. For the foodies, there is the food shop Specialit‡ di Parma, where you can get prosciutto, culatello, salame, mortadella, parmigiano-reggiano, and various prepared foods, as well as wines. Modena A beautiful little city, Modena has arcaded sidewalks suggestive of Bologna, lined with expensive shops - Modena, home to Ferrari and Maserati, has the highest per-capital income in Italy. See the duomo, the cathedral of San Geminiano, with its balcony behind the altar, from which you can see the length of the church, and the crypt housing the remains of the saint. Then go to the Piazza Grande and the Palazzo Comunale, which houses a museum as well as the civic offices of the city. Be sure to look at the historic bucket that was stolen from Bologna during a raid in 1385, and the frescoes depicting the Modenese at war in Roman times, and ceiling paintings of the government in Modena. Another place to visit is the Palazzo dei Musei, with its Estense Library. The foodies need to go to Salumeria Giuseppe Giusti, a veritable temple of Emilia-Romagna food products - you can count about 13 proscuitti hanging over the back counter.
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