Never happens when I'm around

Sign in the Reggio laundromat: Rule C: NO GETTING UNDRESSED AND LOADING MACHINES WITH SHOES. How come I'm never around when people do this kind of thing? Oh well, maybe 1030 in the morning is too early for this sort of shenanigan.

Parma

The weather's dried up a bit, leaving shrinking puddles on the ground. Today being Saturday, there is a market in Reggio. The stalls fill up the squares around the town centre.

A short ride away by train, and I find that an even bigger market is in progress in Parma. You can tell what is important to the locals from what's being traded. In Italian markets they were mainly clothes and shoes. It's important to cut a figura bella in Italy. Fortunately for me, as a traveller and straniero, I can be forgiven looking a bit shabby. Many of the clothing stalls are operated by Chinese, no doubt sourcing their stock from China.

Parma is also famous for food, as you can tell from prosciutto di Parma.

Here are some yummy looking pastries.

The Teatro Regio (opera house) is closely associated with Verdi and Toscanini.

I find Parma attractive. It looks well-maintained and prosperous.

I noticed a self-service laundromat near the station in Reggio. Good, I'll take the opportunity to launder my clothes on my way out tomorrow. I have decided to stay in Modena on Sunday night for a change of scenery. Only problem is I don't know where its address is in relation to the station, so I'll just have to find out when I get there.

And though I'd promised myself not to accumulate more baggage, I couldn't resist picking up Le Avventure di Sherlock Holmes for 2€ at a remainders bookshop. It is one in the series I Grandi Maestri di Giallo. Giallo means yellow, and comes from the distinctive yellow covers first used by the publishing house Mondadori in 1929 for cheap paperback crime thrillers. Eventually giallo became the generic term for a crime or mystery novel.

I know the stories well: Uno Scandalo in Boemia, La Lega dei Capelli Rossi, etc. but it's hard going, even with a dictionary. Still, there's a thrill in recognising something familiar in another language.

Reggio Emilia

After breakfast, Hohei and I caught the bus to the city. The bus was late, but so was the train to Reggio nell'Emilia, upstream from Bologna on the Po. While we were in the waiting room, I pointed out the bomb memorial to Hohei. I can feel a great sadness in this room, he said.

It rained all the way to Reggio and didn't let up when got off the train. We looked around a bit, walking under porticos, but eventually took shelter and lunch in a by-the-slice pizza parlour. The town looked affluent from the contents of the shops but I think most of its inhabitants lived outside the city and were staying indoors on this gloomy Friday.

Hohei went back to Bologna and I waited until 1530 for the hostel to open. The hostel is in a large villa and the corridors are huge and echo-ey. The hostel would have felt even more forlorn if some young Italians on a weekend jaunt hadn't turned up later. 

I'm too weary to go for a sit-down dinner so I bought a takeaway pizza and ate it in the hostel's refectory. After dinner I entertained myself reading a trashy crime fumetti (comic book, literally little puffs of smoke, referring to the speech balloons) I found in the dorm. Good language practice. I can now say things in Italian like: That car is tailing us. Could be very useful.

A washout of a day, really. Into each journey some rain must fall, to misquote the old saw. The only picture I took was of this quirkily named fire hose reel. Oh dear, I'm going to be bored in Reggio in a day if it's this small. Well at least Parma and Modena are within commuting distance.