How to Get Around Parma

The centre is flat, compact and best covered on foot — almost everything is within twenty minutes of the cathedral square. Parma is also a serious cycling city, with bike lanes and cheap hire.

City buses cover the outskirts and the station, which is a fifteen-minute walk north of the centre. Much of the historic core is restricted to residents’ traffic, so leave a car outside it.

For the province you will want a car. The dairies, the curing houses at Langhirano and the castles of the Parma valleys are spread across the countryside and served by infrequent buses built around school timetables.

Trains run along the Via Emilia to Bologna, Modena, Reggio Emilia and Piacenza, which makes a day in any of the neighbouring food cities straightforward without driving.

How easily, and at what cost, can you combine the region’s main destinations?

Cost compares the options for each route rather than quoting a fare: inexpensive means the price is not a factor in planning, moderate cost means a real line in the budget, and the expensive option is one worth weighing against the alternative. Fares change from year to year; the ranking between them does not.