Where to Stay in Parma, Emilia-Romagna

What is Parma known for?

Parmigiano Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma are made under the city's name, and the gastronomic tradition behind them sits beside a reputation for architecture, music and art rather than replacing it. The Teatro Farnese and the Conservatorio Arrigo Boito hold the second half of that. The Galleria nazionale di Parma and the Palazzo della Pilotta hold the art between them, and the University of Parma, one of the oldest in the world, gives the streets a student presence through the teaching year.

What are the main landmarks in Parma?

The Baptistery of Parma heads the list. Palazzo della Pilotta and the Teatro Farnese take the palace end, the Galleria nazionale di Parma and the Museo Glauco Lombardi take the collections, and the Bodoni Museum sits on the same list. Churches crowd the rest of the city.

San Giovanni Evangelista, the Sanctuary of Santa Maria della Steccata, San Francesco al Prato, San Sepolcro and Santa Maria del Quartiere carry the older dedications, and the Monument to Ercole and Anteo stands among them.

What is the history of Parma?

The name comes from a shield. Parma was an Etruscan word before Romans adapted it to describe a round shield, and the city has carried the same two syllables through everything since. The University of Parma came early.

It is counted among the oldest universities in the world, and teaching, collecting and music run through its institutions from the Conservatorio Arrigo Boito to the Bodoni Museum and the Galleria nazionale di Parma. Religious foundations fill the middle centuries. San Giovanni Evangelista, San Sepolcro, Santa Croce, Ognissanti and the Certosa di Parma each mark a community that built and endowed its own ground.

The Palazzo della Pilotta and the Teatro Farnese belong to the courtly layer above them, and the Galleria nazionale di Parma and the Museo Glauco Lombardi keep what that layer collected. Two halves grew either side of the water. Oltretorrente took its name from the position, and the rest of Parma spread on the other bank, so a walk across the stream is still the plainest way to read the city.

Food came out of the country around it. Parmigiano Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma carry the name of a place rather than of any single maker.

Where is Parma?

The stream does the dividing. Parma sits on both banks of the watercourse that shares its name, and the quarter on the west side is called Oltretorrente, a name that means nothing more complicated than the other side of the stream. The split is easy to read.

The Botanical Garden of Parma keeps a green enclosure inside that plan, and the province of Parma carries the same name outward into the country around it.

What is the climate of Parma?

The Botanical Garden of Parma keeps the calendar. Its planting year follows the temperate northern pattern, a warm middle and a cold close, with the growing weeks concentrated between them. Winter shortens the evenings.

Daylight goes early then, and the walk between the Baptistery of Parma and San Giovanni Evangelista is made in the dark more often than not, while the stream that divides the city runs through the same months.

How do you get to Parma?

Two banks and one crossing. The Baptistery of Parma and the Palazzo della Pilotta anchor the centre, Oltretorrente lies across the water, and moving between them is the only internal navigation a visit really needs. The province opens out from there.

Anyone travelling for Parmigiano Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma leaves the built-up ground for the country of the province of Parma, and Bologna sits further off as the capital of Emilia-Romagna.