Parma in a Half Day

In my opinion in Parma you can still today breathe the atmosphere of an old capital. It’s a quiet and refined provincial town located in the middle of the Po Valley, and it offers a lot to those who love discovering uncrowded locations that are not touched by mass tourism yet.
I’ll take you first to the Palazzo della Pilotta, which in the past was the service palace of the Dukes of Parma. Inside it today we can find Parma’s most important museums, as well as the astonishing Teatro Farnese, the Farnese Theatre, an architectural masterpiece by Giovanbattista Aleotti. You cannot really miss it, if it’s your first time in Parma.
Next we will go to the Duomo, Parma’s Cathedral, where we’ll find masterpieces by artists as Correggio, a painter that I like a lot, because he reached levels of incomparable refinement and delicacy, and Benedetto Antelami, a moving sculptor who was also the architect of the Baptistery that, with its marble covering, is still today one of Parma’s symbols.
After a short walk through the lanes of the centre, we’ll get to the Steccata Church where Parmigianino frescoed the Ten Virgins. In this case however there just are six young and beautiful girls; every time I see them, they amaze me for their balanced and murmured elegance.
Almost before the Steccatata Church, we can appreciate the neoclassical façade of the Teatro Regio, a real temple of music. Parma’s most beloved Duchess, Maria Luigia, wanted it, and the names of several great musicians of the past and of the present are strictly tied to this building: Toscanini, Paganini, Verdi and more.
We’ll finish our tour through Parma on Piazza Garibaldi, Garibaldi Square, the liveliest square of my town, where we meet our friends for going shopping, having a gelato, a coffee…