The Klaums Take Italia

Many months ago, I sneakily added a Google flight alert for flights from Pittsburgh to Bologna that were sent to my parents’ email address. I knew it was a big ask to have anyone visit us here, but I figured it was worth a shot. To my surprise, my mom called me over the summer excited about a cheap flight that mysteriously showed up in her inbox and wondered if she and my dad should book it. The rest is history! Actually, the rest is this blog post. We were so thankful that my parents were able to take the time to visit us and we had an absolutely jam-packed schedule while they were here (clocking about 17,000 steps a day on average!) Here’s a short recap of what we got up to:

Bologna

You know we had to show off our beautiful home base. We made sure to feed them all the local specialties: mortadella, tagliatelle al ragu, tortellini in brodo, Lambrusco wine, and lots of gelato. One of the absolute highlights was a cooking class we booked with a local chef named Luigi. We all piled into his apartment and he taught us how to make traditional bolognese sauce, pasta from scratch, and tiramisu! It was so informative, delicious, and fun! If you ever come to the area I can’t recommend it enough. Hit him up at [email protected]

We took the San Luca Express (an adorable little tourist train) up to San Luca for some amazing views. We wandered around Piazza Maggiore and Sala Borsa (a historical and beautiful library). We had aperitivos. We showed them our shoebox of an apartment. Overall they got a real feel for bolognese life and they ended up loving it here!

Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, and Pisa

Yep you read all those cities right. We had a whirlwind tour of the Toscana region, starting off in Florence. Fighting the crowds, we managed to fit in some of the classics. We checked out the famous duomo of Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, the Ponte Vecchio, and my personal favorite: Michelangelo’s David statue! We ate delicious foccaccia sandwiches, affogatos, and ended the evening in a sweet little osteria outside of the central city where we had some of my favorite pasta so far and a huge Florentine steak.

The next day we fully embraced the tourist vibe by hopping on a tour bus that led us through a few beautiful Tuscan cities. We did a walking tour through Siena, ate lunch at an amazing farm/winery, wandered through the winding hilly streets of a tiny hamlet called San Gimignano, and saw the one and only leaning tower of Pisa! We were absolutely wiped after almost 12 hours of zooming all over the region, but it was worth it to see the beautiful rolling Tuscan hills.

After a few days recovering back in Bologna, my parents ventured out all on their own to have a short daytrip to Venice! They’re pros at navigating Italy’s train system now!

Parma

On our last day together, we took the regional train about an hour west to a city called Parma that’s part of the Emilia-Romagna region. Parma is one of 5 provinces that produces parmigiano reggiano. You are probably familiar with parmesan cheese, but the real deal is only found in this specific area. We got to see the whole process from separating the milk from the whey to the sorting and preservation process, and finally the glorious wheels of cheese that age for various amounts of time. The best part of course was tasting different years of cheese. As you can guess, the older the cheese, the funkier the experience. It was very cool to see the process of the production of one of my favorite foods! I think the parents liked it too and we got to have a fashion moment as well

I’m so grateful to have spent this week with my lovely parents! I’m proud that they ventured out of their comfort zone to explore a new country and it was very fun playing tour guide for them. It also marked the halfway point of our time here in Italy and it’s really starting to sink in that we have a limited time left. A bittersweet feeling to be sure.