Day 5

Sunday dawned bright and sunny, if chilly. I had a pretty full day planned. On the first Sunday of the month, all the public museums are free and I had postponed visiting the major art museum until now. It was also the first Sunday of Advent, so I needed to go to Mass. Fortunately, there was no shortage of churches. The hard thing was finding out when they were actually having Mass. There is a Benedictine abbey in Parma. It consists of about 6 old monks. It’s a rather sad place. They publicized that they had Mass at 10:00, which was perfect. It was also very close. I was relieved when I reached the church, because it was clear that Mass was actually going to be celebrated. In the end, there were about 20 people in the congregation - mostly senior citizens, like myself.

Benedictine church of St. John the Evangelist

After Mass, I headed straight to the museum. It is housed in the Palazzo della Pilotta, a large complex of structures that were built over the centuries to house various activities of the ruling family. Part of the structure now houses the National Gallery of Parma. The various rulers assembled the collection of paintings over the centuries. Most of which had been scattered across Europe after the end of the various dynasties. It has taken decades of hard work to reassemble as much of the collection as possible. The gallery has also tried to add works that represent artists who lived and worked in Parma. Many of these works came from churches that had been deconsecrated. What is there now is very handsomely displayed in long corridors that have been turned into galleries. The largest number of paintings have religious themes, as was typical for the period from which the collection stems. I spent a good two hours viewing the collection. I was please to find several representations of St. Benedict among the paintings. All in all, it was a very impressive collection. Two hours, however, is about my limit when it comes to museums. I left and headed back into the city.

Palazzo della Pilotta

Probably because of the nice weather and the fact that it was Sunday, the streets were filled with people. I had a restaurant in mind for lunch, but I kept getting turned around, even using my phone. Eventually I found it, but the wait time was over an hour. I did not want to wait that long. I had to find someplace, because very few restaurants are open on Sunday evening. I had passed one that didn’t seem too busy and was away from the crowds, so I headed there. Unfortunately, there was a wait even there, but then the proprietor said, “Unless you want to eat outside.” It was not that cold, so I said, “Sure. Outside is fine.” He probably went back inside thinking “Crazy American!” I ordered a plate of cooked ham to start, mostly because it was served with a kind of pickled pear that I wanted to try. When the waitress came she asked if I also wanted some parmigiano - why not? I was in Parma, after all. At the same time, I ordered some little squash gnocchi with a Gorgonzola cream to follow my started. The ham was simply delicious, naturally sweet and moist and the parmigiano salty and dry. These folks definitely have it figured out. I drank some nice Lambrusco to wash it down. There was a lot of food in that appetizer. I almost regretted ordering something else. It seemed like forever, though for that ‘something else’ to arrive. Eventually my young waitress arrived to take my starter away. She said there was a little problem in the kitchen, but that my gnocchi would take some time. OK, I thought. Then I waited, and waited. Eventually the proprietor came out and I asked, “How much longer is this going to take?” He seemed very apologetic and asked if I wanted to move inside, since there was room now. So, I did. My gnocchi arrived shortly thereafter. They were very good, but the experience had taken the edge off my appetite. I paid and left. (My phone battery was depleted, so there are no pictures.)

Parma as seen from the Palazzo

I hurried back to the apartment to get some juice back into my phone. I was going to a concert of sacred music at 4:30. When I had visited the church of San Francesco earlier in my visit, I had seen a notice for this concert, which was going to feature Gregorian chant paired with reconstructions of medieval chant in the early Franciscan period. Interspersed were going to be selections from the writings of St. Francis. I thought that this seemed like an interesting program. I walked over to the church and was surprised to see how many people were already there. I found a seat and got comfortable. A Franciscan gave a long and wordy introduction to the program before the singers ever appeared. When the musicians did come out, there were three distinct groups - a men’s’ choir, a women’s choir and a small ensemble of instrumentalists. The men sang the Gregorian chants and the women responded with a piece of non-Gregorian sacred music, some of which was accompanied by the musicians. Then a text of St. Francis was read aloud. It was quite well done and not very long - less than an hour. Soon we were walking out into the brisk, night air. I was headed back to the apartment for a quiet night “at home’. And it really was starting to feel like that.

Musical angel outside of San Francesco